This breakout board make use of  the Vishay TEMT6000 ambient light sensor (www.vishay.com). It is suitable for  who need to test or integrate a lighting detection system in the room or inside a container.  The TEMT6000 is an NPN silicon phototransistor in SMD, the arrangement of the contacts is in line with that adopted by many modern components: no foot, but L-shaped contacts that start from the side and continue under the body. Because of this welding with traditional systems is difficult and proceed (at least in industrial production) with hot air or infrared systems. When using TEMT6000 it is necessary to remember its main features, which (at room temperature, typically 25 ° C ...) are a maximum Vce (in the absence of light) of 6 volts and a reverse Vce which must not exceed 1.5 V and a maximum collector current of 20 mA. In our breakout board these features are met, as the supply voltage is 5 volts and the one between collector and emitter is lower, since the fall on R1 must be subtracted from the 5 volts. The collector current Ic never reaches 20 mA, since, being R1 of 10 kohm, it would never even reach 0.5 mA. In low light conditions, OUT has about 0.5 volts, but with a flashlight aimed at the sensor it reaches almost 5 volts. We conclude the analysis of the card with the LED, which was inserted to signal the presence of the 5-volt power supply. To offer maximum versatility, all lines (power supply, output voltage) are available both on pads on the edges of the printed circuit board, and on pin-strips for insertion on other PCBs. As for the applications, the breakout board lends itself to act as an ambient light detector for the automatic control of the lighting of a room, or the backlight of an LCD display, but also as a sensor to create a luxmeter from which it does not very high precision is required; it can also be useful to control the automatic switching on of lights in tunnels in vehicles.

The breakout boards are prototyping boards containing the already welded needed component, whose connections are carried outside the bases on easily usable connections for pitch and termination; generally the connections are pitches with a pitch of 2.54 mm, like those of the classic integrated DIP. To help those who would like to use SMD components but doesn’t have the means or the qualities to weld it, a number of integrated sensors (including sensors, switching power supplies, battery chargers, linear amplifiers, etc.) have been identified and mounted on ready-to-use bases. These breakout boards are both an aid for those who want to have ready in a traditional format the best of SMD electronics, both for those who can work with SMD components - need to have these components available on prototyping boards to apply them to circuits existing and testing, that is, to create prototypes that integrate the functions of the relative integrated, before realizing the final printed circuit of a device.