Visible Pointing Lasers
Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:49 pm
Has anyone built their own visible pointing/alignment laser?
I had an idea a while back that I thought I would bounce it off the group. I was thinking about putting two very small battery powered laser diodes on my head assembly. They would point from two different angles exactly at the focus point. You would see two dots if the focus length was not right. Move the z until the dots converge to one dot. Then jog the machine XY until the dot is where you want it on the work piece. If you need to move the z to the center of the thickness of the material you would do that last. The weight could probably keep to less than 1/2 oz.
This would accomplish two goals...focus and alignment.
I had an idea a while back that I thought I would bounce it off the group. I was thinking about putting two very small battery powered laser diodes on my head assembly. They would point from two different angles exactly at the focus point. You would see two dots if the focus length was not right. Move the z until the dots converge to one dot. Then jog the machine XY until the dot is where you want it on the work piece. If you need to move the z to the center of the thickness of the material you would do that last. The weight could probably keep to less than 1/2 oz.
This would accomplish two goals...focus and alignment.