“Materials: laser (you can get a laser pointer at Radio Shack or an office store for $10 or $20; Bryan happened to have a laser level), a very small mirror (we pried a small mirror out of a makeup thing, see the picture), good stereo with good speakers), plus tape and books and stuff to act as shims. Bryan aims and aligns the laser level, using high tech shims like a book and a mini-stapler.”
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April 1st, 2006
I wonder how well this would work using a woofer that have a crome center cap. The curved cap might give a cool effect.
April 1st, 2006
I wonder how a few lasers at different angles would look?
April 25th, 2006
Ok, this is weird..
My father (Lee M Harris) patented this very same thing, back in the late 70’s - early 80’s.
In fact, he and a partner manufactured and sold a small number of these, complete with a HeNe laser, under the name “Dynalaser”.
I grew up watching the dynalaser project patterns onto the ceiling of our living room..strange seeing it in another incarnation.
As for using speakers with chromed caps, it doesn’t work very well…the beam tends to become fuzzy and you end up with a dancing fuzzy light.
Changing the angle at which the laser beam coincides with the mirror surface only affects the angle of the beam bouncing off of the mirror.
Using a 5mW HeNe laser gives the best results, IMHO, as the human eye causes you to see a purplish “halo” around the beam (when used in a totally dark room).
The best way to do something like this is to make two loops out of scotch tape and connect them perpendicular to each other (so that, looking down on top of the loops, you see a + shape) and then using a dab of superglue to mount the mirror piece onto the apex of the “spring” you get much more interesting patterns with this method than by just mounting a mirror to a speaker, plus using scotch tape means that you don’t have to ruin your speakers, as it’s easy enough to remove.
Dichroic mirror also works well for this project.
Anyway, i just thought that I’d reply..given the personal nature of this project.
November 28th, 2006
take a look at this page, http://spt06.chez-alice.fr/00/lasers.htm , there are three different ways to make a cheap laserscanner using loudspeakers
June 5th, 2007
great job on the web site.
their should be a little more stuff to look at but good job anyway.
peace!