IR receiver transmitter High frequency

Question

I build photo gate, to detect throwing ball. It works fine when delay time in main loop for max 40 milliseconds. Problems start when I delay every loop only for 20 milliseconds, now my LED which indicates if something broke path between IR led and IR receiver, blinks occasionally, if I set delay for 10 milliseconds and turn on, then LED is off for 2 seconds, then start blinking very fast and is ON for rest time, until I break IR path. I think some physics is going on here which I don't understand.

I also would like to ask if it is possible to narrow IR wave path to be more like laser (going strait into one direction) and how I can control sensitivity of IR detection

This is schematic

IR transmiter IR reciever

Code:

//define pins. I used pins 4 and 5
#define irLedPin 4          // IR Led on this pin
#define irSensorPin 5       // IR sensor on this pin
#define buzzerPin 2       // buzzer on this pin

int irRead(int readPin, int triggerPin); //function prototype

void setup()
{
  pinMode(irSensorPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(irLedPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(buzzerPin, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600); 
  // prints title with ending line break 
  Serial.println("Program Starting"); 
  // wait for the long string to be sent 
  delay(100); 
}

void loop()
{  

  bool isOn = irRead(irSensorPin, irLedPin);
  //Serial.println(isOn); //display the results
  if(isOn == true)
  {
    digitalWrite(buzzerPin, HIGH);
  }
  else
  {
     digitalWrite(buzzerPin, LOW);
  }
  delay(10); 
}


int irRead(int readPin, int triggerPin)
{
  int halfPeriod = 13; //one period at 38.5khZ is aproximately 26 microseconds
  int cycles = 23; //26 microseconds * 23 is more or less 600 us
  int i;
  for (i=0; i <=cycles; i++)
  {
    digitalWrite(triggerPin, HIGH); 
    delayMicroseconds(halfPeriod);
    digitalWrite(triggerPin, LOW); 
    delayMicroseconds(halfPeriod - 1);     // - 1 to make up for digitaWrite overhead    
  }
  return digitalRead(readPin);
}

Answer 1

While you are doing a delay() you can't be doing anything else - that includes looking to see if the beam has been broken by the ball.

You must not use delay() in your sketch, instead use millis() as in the BlinkWithoutDelay example sketch in the IDE's File -> Examples menu.

Also how you are dealing with your IR system is incorrect. You are first generating a brief square wave and then afterwards you are looking to see what was received. Instead you need to be generating the square wave and at the same time see if that square wave is being received. Normally that is achieved by using one of the PWM outputs of the Arduino set to the right frequency to generate a constant waveform which the receiver then senses all the time.