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2017-07-26 (W) Pi0 Laser Tag PiTagErrUs

A project log for PiTagErrUs

Transform a piece of plumbing pipe into a rugged laser tag gun.

brian-mcevoyBrian McEvoy 08/17/2017 at 16:530 Comments
A mistake was made when drilling the holes for the laser modules. All the holes were drilled much too wide. In fact, the laser modules wide base could fall right through the hole while the intention was to make them only wide enough for the narrow top to pass through.

Ill-fitting laser module

The drilling index was corrected with the appropriate imperial and metric measurements shown. The incorrect measurements were covered with a note showing the new measurement.

Correct hole-size index

To make fixing the holes easier, a small model was designed which would print a collar that would fit around the laser module so glue could fill the rest of the space between the forward array and the laser.

Collar model

The next thing to go wrong was that I entered the diameter of the laser module instead of the radius so the models printed twice as large as I needed. Fortunately, the print time for six collars was less than six minutes.

Wrong size

The model was corrected and more than enough collars were printed. Eight were printed in less than five minutes. Before 3D printing, this probably would have necessitated a trip to the hardware store or at least a drill press and small workshop.

Correctly sized models

All the laser modules were installed and held in place with rubber bands. E6000 adhesive was used to fill all the gaps. These lasers will not be positionable so their accuracy won't be reliable while playing laser tag.

Mending forward arrays

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