# Measuring a Photoresistor Circuit

A light dependent resistor (LDR), a photoresistor, changes it’s resistance depending on the amount of light that hits the surface of it. I was curious though to see how much light or dark would affect that resistance level.

The schematic to test the LDR is very simple, like simple simple. Really the hard part is figuring out how to make reasonably standardized changes to the light to get a sense of it. You also kind of want to see what the light level is visually so you can have a frame of reference when looking at numbers later through an ADC output.

So this is what I came up with.

The schematic is just +5V to one lead of the LDR, then a 1K series resistor, and then GND.

What I’m going to do, is place the entire circuit inside the lightbox I use to take pictures of stuff for the website, and then measure the voltage drop across the 1K series resistor. First I’ll measure the voltage with ambient light, then add a primary light source, then add four light blocks one at a time to see what the difference is. The light blocks are made of highly technical postit notes cut down to fit on the little holder I’m using… which is an old UV lens filter. I checked before I took the photos and the presence of the filter had no effect on the voltage level.

So there we go, we have the system setup inside the light box, and ready to start measuring. Remember, this orange multimeter is autoranging, so you’ll have to look closely for the position of the decimal point.

Light LevelVmeasureDifference
Ambient2.17VN/A
Primary1.12V+1.95V
Blocks: 12.98V-1.14V
Blocks: 22.48V-0.50V
Blocks: 32.13V-0.35V
Blocks: 41.85V-0.28V

As the amount of available light diminishes, the resistance of the photoresistor increases. From the measurements, it also looks like there is a diminishing return on the amount of light blockage you get when you place a sheet of postit note between an LED flashlight and a photo resistor. I decided to rerun the test with more blocks so I had more than four data points, and this is what the graph wound up looking like, pretty asymptotic as it approaches the resistance caused by whatever the ambient light is.

You would also expect that as the light decreases, and resistance increases, that the current flowing would decrease as well. Fortunately, since we know…

• The voltage input to the circuit as a whole, Vout of my Arduino measured at 4.87V
• The voltage drop across the second resistor, the chart above
• The value of the series resistor, measured at 987Ω

… we can determine both the current draw of the circuit and the resistance in ohms of the LDR as each light blocker was added, thanks to Ohm’s law and the fact that the same current draw occurs at every node of a voltage divider (more on this in a later post)!

First, we find the circuit current draw. The formula you would use is $$\mathrm{\frac{V_{meas}}{R_{2}}=I_{circuit}}$$. If we use the Ambient Lighting measurement from above as an example, we would get: $\large\mathrm{\frac{2.17V}{987Ω}=0.0021A=2.10mA}$

Second, we use the voltage we start with, 4.87V from the Arduino, and the current draw, 2.10mA, to determine the total resistance of the circuit: $\large\mathrm{\frac{2.17V}{.0021A}=2319Ω}$

Finally, we subtract the value of the series resistor, 987Ω from the total resistance, 2319Ω to get the resistance of the LDR in the ambient light of my lab: $\large\mathrm{2319Ω-987Ω=1332Ω}$

The final table then, showing us how much current was drawn and what the resistance of the photoresistor at each stage was, is as follows…

Light LevelVinVmeasuredCurrentLDR Resistance
Ambient4.87V2.05V2.05mA1358
Primary4.87V3.76V3.81mA291
Blocks: 14.87V2.48V2.51mA951
Blocks: 24.87V2.05V2.08mA1358
Blocks: 34.87V1.83V1.82mA1640
Blocks: 44.87V1.71V1.73mA1824
Blocks: 54.87V1.57V1.59mA2075
Blocks: 64.87V1.48V1.50mA2261
Blocks: 74.87V1.43V1.45mA2374
Blocks: 84.87V1.34V1.36mA2600
Blocks: 94.87V1.30V1.32mA2710

But really, this is a crude method of measuring this – millivolt changes based on sheets of paper stuffed in front of a flashlight in a room with loads of other light and shadow pollution. I had to redo all the measurements for the second table when I realized voltage for a one measurement was higher than the one before because I was holding my hand near the flashlight the first time and cast a shadow from the ambient light source.

Generally speaking, I want to build my own optoisolator, and measure this thing that way instead. I think I’ll do that tomorrow.