Hi,

A few people have been having some issues with focusing and aligning laser modules sourced from Aixis so i decided to write a tutorial that i hope will help, enjoy!

It is also open to modification and if there is anything you can think of adding or any way you feel it might be improved please comment.

Wow thanks a million AJ! This is exactly what i needed,
Keep up the good work,
Graham

Awesome job man and great pictures that show exactly what needs to be done, thanks!

thanks for your great job.

Great, ajlovegrove,

quite smart to cut an hole inside the acryl !! it must be a bit tricky aswell.
prblm with Aixiz lasers is that when is some vibration they unfocus .

Nice tutorial ,We should add this into the NUIbook.

hi thanks for the positive coments, 29 downloads in about 3 hours, very cool.  I think just a little more refinement and its good to go.

Id be happy for this to be added to the NUI bible although reference needs to be made to touche perhaps?  Oh and me of course!

Great stuff!  I have a few modifications that you and/or the community might want to make/add:

It would be good to add a section that tells the right way to insert the line generating lenses - ridged side “in” (towards laser) or ridged side “out” away from laser.  Perhaps show the resulting beam both ways so that improper installation can be visibly detected.

It would also be good to show how to wire the lasers electrically as this seems to come up often - it would be great in this section to show how to power the lasers off a standard power supply (perhaps one of the Aixiz models which people are likely to buy) as well as how to tap into a PC power supply off a molex connector.

Also one minor grammatical change - In the “disclaimer” section - replace ‘stair’ with ‘stare’

The images of focusing the laser and the resulting blobs are fantastic.  Really appreciate the effort that went into this.  I also agree that it should be included in the NUI bible - just add the two sections above

Thanks for assembling this data I think many of us in the community will find it immensely helpful as we continue our builds.

Hey just used your guide to set up my lasers, the results are so much better than my previous attempt!
Thanks again!
Graham

a great thanks

thanks ajlovegrove, this is awesome!

This is great, ajlovegrove. Thanks a lot. I’ve just made a setup using modeling clay (the one that hardens after a few hours), and I must say it was a major pain with not so ideal results.

Have you seen the solution by IDEO Labs? They also use the screws approach, but in a different way. Yours looks simpler to implement. Good job.

Hi Gfantini,

glad to help!  Have you got a link to the IDEO labs thing?  Id like to check it out.

Sure have: Rear-projection TV turned into a multitouch display. Scroll down until the “Install the lasers” section.

Sorry, thought you’d seen it. Their approach looks quite clean: they’ve even machined the parts. There’s also a CAD drawing of their laser holder you can download.

But hey, considering the resources they have, you’ve done a tremendous job.

awesome guide for mounting the lasers, and the pictures helped out a lot

one question, what did you use exactly to cut through the acrylic ?

The rectangular holes were hand cut by me!

You may notice some red lines on the edge of the acrylic in one of the photos, these are the guide lines marked in a perminant pen (can be removed with acetone)using an engineers set square.

I used a 4mm HSS drill bit in a cordless drill to carfully drill around the edge with the holes as close together as possible (practice on a spare piece first!) once all the way round i carefully pushed out the remaining bit.  Then using a 1 inch square fairly course metal file i carfully filed the edges smooth (well smooth ish!)

Then drill the holes for the supports

HOpe this helps!

ajlovegrove - 12 November 2009 12:12 PM

The rectangular holes were hand cut by me!

You may notice some red lines on the edge of the acrylic in one of the photos, these are the guide lines marked in a perminant pen (can be removed with acetone)using an engineers set square.

I used a 4mm HSS drill bit in a cordless drill to carfully drill around the edge with the holes as close together as possible (practice on a spare piece first!) once all the way round i carefully pushed out the remaining bit.  Then using a 1 inch square fairly course metal file i carfully filed the edges smooth (well smooth ish!)

Then drill the holes for the supports

HOpe this helps!

It sure did

I was thinking about doing the same thing but i really didn’t know what drill bit to use, as i know the regular drill bit will break it as soon as i drill into the acrylic.