laser mounted on quad copter?

Hey guys, recently I've been getting into quad copters and have been wanting to put an led light system on mine so I can fly at night.

This is how it would work: I ordered some reciever controlled switches that plug into a spare channel on the reciever and I can then control them with a switch on my transmitter. So I would have an on/off switch that I could hook up to led strips to light up my quad.

Since lasers are another one of my hobbies I thought why not try mounting a laser on the quad copter and control it the same way as the lights. I ordered a 445 module from DTR and a small square heatsink from ebay . so I can attach the laser to the front and hook it up through the switch to the 3s lipo (which is 11.1v) that powers the quad. I'm using an x-drive so it should be able to handle the voltage.

I would assign the laser to a momentary switch on my transmitter for safety. I want to make a video once I get it together and put it on YouTube but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea? What do you guys think about all this, should I do it? I can fly the quad copter pretty well and would only turn the laser on to pop a balloon while facing a wall so it doesn't shoot off into the horizon. I can also post pictures of the quad.

Dangerous situation is dangerous. Proceed at your own risk only so long as there are no innocent bystanders anywhere around. (It is a bad idea.)

Sigurthr said:

Dangerous situation is dangerous. Proceed at your own risk only so long as there are no innocent bystanders anywhere around. (It is a bad idea.)

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Yeah I agree, it can be very dangerous. I plan on only using it once to get some pictures and video then disassembling it. I will just put it in a handheld host. I'll use as many safety precautions as I can while building/flying it.

It can be dangerous to change a light bulb in the dark if you forget to turn the power off first :thinking:

I love the idea but then I live out in the country, I would take it one step farther though and add one spinning mirror so you could produce a time tunnel beneath
the copter and on foggy nights it would look very much like something from an other world, maybe a few lights around the perimeter changing colors, now come
on guys you know this would look good with a 520nm LD set up with a spyro mirror and some led's around the sides :eg:

think of all the cows you can scare

If there is a way to make some kind of driver to run off the receiver which I believe is 5 volts and however many amps the BEC can handle. Should be pretty bad ass to have a 445 death ray in the sky. But try not to throw out public safety concerns.

Most Rx units can only source <500mA and it's not a good idea to stress cheap lightweight Chinese electronics.

It's better to use a spare channel on your Tx and Rx and use a Rx controlled switch. You have the option of running right off the main LiPo or using a separate battery for the switched load. Turnigy makes a Rx controlled switch for under $8.


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Looks like a relay setup is the way to go. You should make the laser point up so when you lose your quad you flick on the laser and look for the beacon!

Unless you have a lot of fields to fly in away from the city I would advise against doing this. It's bad enough to pont lasers at houses and public areas but from the sky it's even more visible and you don't know where you are pointing. Unless you are point straight down. And even then an in flight malfunction could aim the beam right at you, or at a vehicle or even a plane. I have plans in the works for something like this as well. The location I would be using this requires a mission number and coordination through 3 different agencies to access so it's closed off to public access by miles and miles of forest. And even then I'm still undecided if I want to do this. The lasers being operated at this facility far surpass any output i could get of our current selection of diodes so no harm there lol.

Flaminpyro said:

It can be dangerous to change a light bulb in the dark if you forget to turn the power off first :thinking:

I love the idea but then I live out in the country, I would take it one step farther though and add one spinning mirror so you could produce a time tunnel beneath
the copter and on foggy nights it would look very much like something from an other world, maybe a few lights around the perimeter changing colors, now come
on guys you know this would look good with a 520nm LD set up with a spyro mirror and some led's around the sides :eg:

think of all the cows you can scare

Click to expand...

If only i had the money for something like that Haha that would be pretty fun to fly it around scarring people

3Pig said:

If there is a way to make some kind of driver to run off the receiver which I believe is 5 volts and however many amps the BEC can handle. Should be pretty bad ass to have a 445 death ray in the sky. But try not to throw out public safety concerns.

Click to expand...

The module i bought from dtr already has a driver that can handle the 3s lipo that powers the quad. and like Sigurthr siad, i dont think the BEC will have enough amperage to run a 1w+ m140 diode.

;1285705 said:

Most Rx units can only source <500mA and it's not a good idea to stress cheap lightweight Chinese electronics.

It's better to use a spare channel on your Tx and Rx and use a Rx controlled switch. You have the option of running right off the main LiPo or using a separate battery for the switched load. Turnigy makes a Rx controlled switch for under $8.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Yes, that is the switch i ordered and i plan on running it off the main lipo

3Pig said:

Looks like a relay setup is the way to go. You should make the laser point up so when you lose your quad you flick on the laser and look for the beacon!

Click to expand...

That would be neat but also a big safety hazard. I wont be flying the quad out of sight anyways, probably no more than ~30 feet away.

Speedy78 said:

Unless you have a lot of fields to fly in away from the city I would advise against doing this. It's bad enough to pont lasers at houses and public areas but from the sky it's even more visible and you don't know where you are pointing. Unless you are point straight down. And even then an in flight malfunction could aim the beam right at you, or at a vehicle or even a plane. I have plans in the works for something like this as well. The location I would be using this requires a mission number and coordination through 3 different agencies to access so it's closed off to public access by miles and miles of forest. And even then I'm still undecided if I want to do this. The lasers being operated at this facility far surpass any output i could get of our current selection of diodes so no harm there lol.

Click to expand...

Like i said, i will have it on a momentary switch so there's no chance of me accidentally bumping it on while flying and fumbling to turn it off. I will only have it on if i know for sure what is in its path, and that it wont cause harm.

I read up on your project, pretty cool that you have all that space to test stuff!