How good/bad/useful are laser pointers for Zeroing?
A friend of mine has a cool red laser-pointer throwing crosshairs on his SB table.
Seems these cool gadgets are not particularly expensive - $40?
How truly useful are they?
Most comment on the subject I've found (in Archives) dates back five years
so I'm wondering what the state of art...of thinking is.. re. these wonderful gadgets.. today in 2011
now you guys have had a chance to mess around with them
Are they as wonderful as they look?
Does any particular make/model stand head and shoulders above the crowd?
How to get power to them? (batteries inside the unit?)
4 Attachment(s)
At $4 each -what's to lose??
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sailfl
That is the one I bought -and it works great.
I stopped thru at my friend's workshop while on the way to work this morning
and took a few quick photos. See attachments below.
He's been using this $4 laser for a few months now
solidly mounted on a lil right-angle bracket on the Y-car
(see the second pic) -and it seems to be working just fine.
Geez, at $4 a pop, you order 3 of them - one to use right away,
and keep the other two for when the first one dies!
He tells me they came in from China direct
with China stamps on the package he picked up from the local Post Office
and shipping was free! Beat that. :cool:
Thanks for several good points!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
paul_z
You can focus the laser shown at http://www.dealextreme.com/p/red-las...-16mm-5mw-5942;
however, be aware that the focus is achieved by rotating the front lens (light output) part of the barrel.
This rotates the crosshairs as well. It makes mounting it a bit awkward.
Still, as a relatively crude offset zeroing device it's not bad.
It's probably good to + 0.020" and it provides a warm feeling that things will be cut properly.
The focus causes one other issue - where to fix the focus.
I focus mine on the bed, not on the top of the material.
After a few resurfacings of the bed, I need to refocus and compute a new offset.
I think I'm going to modify mine to have a switchable intensity.
At high intensity, the human eye gets saturated and it is almost impossible to determine the exact location of the beam.
At low intensity, the visible part of the crosshair does not extend more than a couple of inches.
Will bear all that in mind! ;)
The Boss has ordered 6 of them! ..some with points, some with crosshairs.
We'll be using them one at a time of course...
Multiples were ordered because Barbados is a long way away from China,
and keeping spares in stock is a good idea
plus.. at $4 each, this approach is within anyone's financial means.
Accurate to 20 thou is all we need, really.
It's just to help get close to where the action will be, in less time
and besides, it's cool as hell -and impresses visitors to our workshop.