Need help with DIY project

[kfowler]

I'm trying to make a home made laser putting aid similar to Pelz's one below.

LazrAimer

I have one of those level laser tools for hanging pictures. It works perfect when turned on. I need help trying to figure out how to activate it. The LazrAimer uses voice activation. Any ideas?

[zeg]

What's your budget? Cheapest and easiest I can think of would be a long pair of wires to a handheld button hacked into whatever circuit turns the laser level on. Not as slick as voice activation, and might be difficult to operate. Maybe a footswitch instead, depending on how you want to use it.

[kfowler]

What's your budget? Cheapest and easiest I can think of would be a long pair of wires to a handheld button hacked into whatever circuit turns the laser level on. Not as slick as voice activation, and might be difficult to operate. Maybe a footswitch instead, depending on how you want to use it.

I considered that. Also think about "The Clapper". Do they still make that? Perhaps you can modify it to work off of voice instead. Adding some king of repeating timer may work as well.

[zeg]

The timer is a good idea. I'm not sure how easy it would be to modify a clapper to run off batteries. Converting to voice sounds tricky if it doesn't already respond to a shout. I'm pretty sure those are just a filter that looks for a sharp rise in sound intensity. You might be able to change the threshold to something achievable with a voice if it's actually done in analog, but I'd suspect it's running a little microcontroller.

Another possibility would be to scavenge a remote control from somewhere and use that, but it's going to require some effort. At some point you should just buy the ready-made one (although I'm all in favor of senseless hacks for their own sake!)

[kfowler]

At some point you should just buy the ready-made one

But what fun would that be?

The more I think about it, the more I'm leanin toward the timer option. If I could find something that pulses every 20-30 secs or so. That may work.

[zeg]

Either find something, or go to digikey and get a 555 timer, if they still make them. With about $10 in parts you can build a nice little multishot timer with a dial to set the pulse frequency. Of course, you'll need another $100 or so in side effects if you want to do it nicely (soldering iron, solder, perfboard, etc)... If you're new to electronics, it's a great project to cut your teeth on.

[kfowler]

Thanks Zeg. I built a guitar amplifier once. I have a lot of the basic tools. Thanks for the suggestion.