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Turret Prototype One

A project log for Phase: Laser Turret Instrument

Balloons+Lasers=Music

hyperionHyperIon 09/10/2018 at 00:000 Comments

Turret Prototype one is done! This prototype is mostly to explore the mechanics of the eventual design, as the design needed for this project will have to be very different than the vast majority posted online.

So I decided to start off this project by researching what kind of laser turret designs others had created. While I wouldn't say the designs are bad, the vast majority are simple pan tilt servos with a laser pointer. These aren't the most mechanically sound designs, and they have some very real limitations. Limitations which would make such a design unusable for this projects eventual goals.

So, the first step is to make a turret design from scratch. It won't be an incredibly complicated design, but I need something fast, precise, and designed to a high quality standard. The most important feature that I haven't seen in other designs is I needed the turret to be able to rotate 360 degrees continuously.  The initial way I've come up with to pull this off is through the use of a set of geared down stepper motors. All of the electronics, including a battery, are designed to be mounded to one pivoting plate, with teeth on the base itself. By driving against these teeth, the upper plate can spin 360 degrees around continuously.

Unfortunately there are some problems with this first attempt. They are as follows:

However, on the bright side, the motion is perfect. The laser is able to target quickly and accurately, exceeding my expectations. This is mainly what I was hoping to explore with this prototype. With a lighter laser this could only get better, so I am very optimistic for the next prototype design.

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