HOW TO USE: ULTRASONIC MODULE HC-SR04

Are you a starter with Dasduino? Or a newbie when it comes to electronics? You fancy a specific module, but you don’t know how to use it? Don’t worry, we have our How To Use series!

How to Use is a series of blog tutorials by soldered where you will find everything you need to begin working with your favorite modules. Tutorials include technical characteristics, operating principles, instructions on how to connect the module with Dasduino and basic coding. Everything else is up to you and your imagination.

The HC-SR04 ultrasonic module uses ultrasonic waves to determine the distance of objects, just like a dolphin or a bat. Not only that it surpasses its competition with its simplicity and cost, it’s surpassing it with its technical capabilities, too. It doesn’t get confused by sunlight or black materials, such as the most famous competitor Sharp IR.

Characteristics:

Range: 2-200 cm
Accuracy: 3 mm
Effective angle of measurement: 15 °
Voltage: 5V
The maximum quiescent current of 2 mA
Operating current: 15 mA
Ultrasonic frequency: 40 kHz
Dimensions: 45 x 20 x 15 mm

Note: Official datasheet gives more impressive technical characteristics of the module, for example, angle measurement of 30 degrees or a range of up to 7 meters. The above data is provided with our own tests and work on projects, and we can guarantee for that data.

Two main parts to the underlying principle of operation of the module are the trig (switch) and echo (reflections). Microcontroller (Dasduino or Arduino) is used to send 5V on trig pin module in a duration of minimum 10 microseconds. That way we are activating the ultrasonic transducer which transmits 8 pulses of 40 kHz and waits for their reflection. When the sensor detects the reflected pulse, it sends the information back to the microcontroller via the echo pin. These data are in fact the duration of the reflected pulse, 150 micro to 25 milliseconds. If the “echo” lasts longer than 35 milliseconds, the sensor detects that the subject is out of reach.

In this tutorial, we will use:

Dasduino Core
Ultrasonic Module HC-SR04
Mini breadboard
M-M cables

We combine ultrasonic module pins with Dasduino (Arduino) like this:

Vcc – +5V

Trig – digital PIN11

Echo – digital PIN12

Gnd – gnd

At the link below you can see a very simple code that prints distance of the object from the sensor in Serial monitor every 50 milliseconds, shown in centimeters.