okay, i'm working on a design project and want to use a laser sensor of some sort to find a vertical distance that the mechanism must move up and down. i've looked at industrial products that can send the output data to a controller (we're planning on using a PLC, by the way), but they're way too expensive for our budget.

i was wondering, however, if it might be possible (and plausible) to adapt a laser tape measure (similar to the one in the link) to send the output to a controller.
http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/jsearch/product.jsp?pn=090394

[Edited on March 18, 2006 at 7:02 PM. Reason : i'm not an electronics whiz, either, if that makes a difference in the plausibility]

3/18/2006 6:57:48 PM

Sure, you could feed the LCD leads into your microcontroller somehow and decode them. But surely you can find a hobby robot laser rangefinder kit out there somewhere.

3/18/2006 7:51:34 PM

what is the total distance the measuring device must measure both max and min?

3/21/2006 12:37:24 AM

the have the laser distance things at big lots on glenwood for 9.99

3/21/2006 8:59:42 AM

The problem with just getting a distance finder from the home depot will be decoding the distance reading but I guess it can be done(according to the complexity without a schematic) if you know what your doing, but could be hard.

3/21/2006 9:56:56 AM

usually the laser things you find at home depot and sears, big lots, etc are actually sonar and it only uses the laser to show you where the sonar is aimed. This is also true for the "laser" thermometers, they use infrared.

^^^^^^ that one is actually a laser though. The $20-$30 use sonic.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 10:33 PM. Reason : ^]

3/21/2006 10:31:12 PM

do you need to use a laser? i dont think our ir sensors were that expensive and they just output a voltage

3/21/2006 10:38:22 PM