ELECTRONICS: Opto Components

The opto category includes marker eye systems and related hardware. Opto-electronic items come in a wide variety of characteristics, but those used in paintball markers seem fairly standard between platforms. Below are a few generic components that can be used in many different applications.

Soldering skills are required for almost every item on this page.
· If needed, practice your soldering skills using spare wires.
· Some wires are thin and may be difficult to strip. Leave plenty of extra length in case you need to strip again.
· Double and triple check your connections when wiring up your marker. Every marker uses different wires for their components so you will need to make a diagram of your own, or find one online. Unfortunately it's not possible to use the same colors as your factory wire harness because the same connectors are used on multiple boards.
· Be sure to use heatshrink tube or electrical tape to insulate your solder connections. A small amount of heatshrink is included with every item on this page.

Instructions for eye wiring:

Universal instructions for eye wiring

3-mm Beam-Break Eye Elements:

3-mm infrared emitter LED

$0.99 each

3-mm infrared emitter LED

One pair of emitter/detector lenses that are invisible to the naked eye. The detector eye is black in appearance because it has a filter to prevent visible light from entering, thus it will only work with an infrared emitter eye.
Price includes one emitter and one detector. Eyes ship as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

3-mm infrared detector eye

$0.99 each

3-mm infrared detector

One pair of emitter/detector lenses that are invisible to the naked eye. The detector eye is black in appearance becuase it has a filter to prevent visible light from entering, thus it will only work with an infrared emitter eye.
Price includes one emitter and one detector. Eyes ship as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

3-mm superbright LED

$1.50 each

Color:

Red Blue White Green Yellow

3-mm superbright LED

These clear-tinted "superbright" LEDs are suitable for use on most boards and markers, including LED relocations and visible/laser eye mods. These are significantly brighter in appearance compared to LEDs with colored lenses.
These 3mm LEDs require approximately 25-mA of current, which is very close to the amount of current used by surface mount LEDs and other parts. Therefore, you can probably skip installing any additional resistors.
Choose from any of the available colors. Each LED ships as shown, with bare solder leads and no wires attached.
Datasheet (this datasheet applies to the green LED, but is representative of the others too)

3-mm visible light detector eye

$0.99 each

3-mm visible light detector eye

This is a 3-mm phototransistor (detector eye) that will respond to a huge range of light; this will work with both infrared emitters as well as some visible LED emitter eyes.
Eye ships as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

5-mm Beam-Break Eye Elements:

5-mm infrared emitter LED, 5-mm lens height

$3.99 each

5-mm infrared emitter LED, 5-mm height

Low-profile 5-mm emitter for anti-chop eye installs. This emitter is very powerful but still reasonable on batteries at the same time.
Eye ships as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

5-mm infrared emitter LED, 4-mm lens height

$3.99 each

5-mm infrared emitter LED, 4-mm height

Low-profile 5-mm emitter for anti-chop eye installs. This emitter is very powerful but still reasonable on batteries at the same time.
Eye ships as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

5-mm visible light detector eye

$2.99 each

5-mm visible light detector eye

This is a 5-mm "can-shaped" visible light detector, suitable for many eye installs. This detector will work with both infrared and visible LED emitter eyes. This particular style phototransistor has three terminals for soldering (emitter, base, and collector), but most paintball circuit boards ignore the middle "base" terminal, so it can be simply removed.
Eye ships as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

Side-looker Beam-Break Eye Elements:

Side-looker infrared emitter LED

$1.29 each

Side-looker infrared emitter LED

Eye ships as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

Side-looker visible detector eye

$1.99 each

Side-looker visible detector eye

Eye ships as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

Reflective Eye Elements:

3x6-mm reflective eye

$3.99 each

3x6-mm reflective eye

After experimenting with different reflective eyes, I have found this to be the perfect eye to function with a Morlock board. It features a rectangular-shaped, measuring 3-mm wide by 6-mm tall, with a depth of 4.6-mm. It will "detect" objects as far as 2-3 millimeters away if the object is bright and smooth enough (this is for most "digital" eye boards).
Reflective eye ships as shown, without wires attached.
Datasheet

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