more laser line tracking

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more laser line tracking

Postby davedave » Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:10 pm

For all you cash cash strapped people out there. A cheap, powerful laser line generator can be made with a 10mW laser signal diode ($12) and any clear LED ($1). Much better than AUS$600 for the scientific version.

Rig up the laser diode with its lens on some sort of structural element (drinking straw) and then fiddle about with the LED (mounted sideways as a rod lens) and you should end up with a powerful enough laser line for the AVRcam to pick it up in low light situations out to a fair distance (~10 meters) or a couple of meters with normal room lighting and still not at all outdoors. For a cheap optical filter many hardware stores (whatever the barn sized store is where you live) don't stock, but can order in glasses made for seeing red lasers during day light (locally (Australia) the brand name is GMC and I forget the product code)) and these have a profound effect on the effectiveness and accuracy of the AVRcam rangefinder.
davedave
 
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Location: Canberra Australia

Postby Ringo » Fri Jun 30, 2006 1:15 pm

I'll have to try the led trick. I'm using a craftsman laser level right now but would love something smaller.
For the optical lens you mentioned I purchased a sheet of red film about a year ago to put over the camera lens to make it easier to see the laser. the sheet was something like 18 inches X 18 inches, so I have quite a bit left over (about 17.5 X 17.5). If anyone wants a piece just send me a message and I'll mail you out a snippet.
Ringo
Ringo
 
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