Wood turner looking for help

Hello I'm a woodturner doing deep hollowing. Turners doing this usually have a laser pointer to show them where the cutter tip is. I'm looking for a recomendation for a pointer with a remote battery pack and switch using AA or AAA batterys. I've tried to find something but it's all so confusing. All I need is a light to shine less than 20 inches, hold up to vibration and have easy battery replacement. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

How much power would such a laser need to be?

I'm not familiar with the application, but i reckon they are typically 5 mW red lasers?

You only need to see the Spot right? You don't need to see the beam do you?

If your into some DIY work, then it wouldn't be too hard to implement something like this.

You'd need to get a standard aixiz module which holds the laser diode, driver and allows you to focus the beam.

You'd then need a heatsink for this to sit in, to make sure the diode stays cool in continous use, if you need this heatsink to be a specific size to sit in a holder or something on the cutter, I'd reccomend speaking to some of our machinists on the forum and they can make you up a custom module to your measurements to make sure it fits nicely, I'd reccomend Ehgemus personally.

Diode wise, checkout some of the hobby laser stores such as:

stonetek.org
hightechdealz.com
modwerx.com

They'll sell cheap red diodes that can be dialed down to run at a low power (not safe for direct exposure to the eye though), you'd also need to purchase a driver to run the diode at a constant current, popular drivers are the LM317 driver which can be build for a few $ by yourself, or the pre built rckstr driver or flexdrive would work just as well.


All you'd need to do then, is run the 2 wires from the back of the driver with the length you want to make it further away, to a switch and a battery pack.

Or you could speak to some members here on the forum like Daguin or other builders and they could build one up for you and ship it to you.

Hope this helps a little.

OK Thanks for all the help. Still a little confused though. The mounting mehanics I can handle. The gentelman that had his system said he bought a $5.00 @ diode and a battery box, conected 2 wires and was good to go. ???
I just need to see a dot a red one is fine. It could be 1/4" in dia, doesn't matter, the dot edge is aimed a pre determined distance from the cutter edge. When cutting, . the dot drops off the side of the vessel. Violia! wall thickness is achieved.
Seems a very simple low power diode is all I need. It only needs to shine less than 20 inches.
I have a laser mounted on a smaller hollowing bar maybe tomorrow I can load a couple of pics. thanks again Guy

You could grab just an aixiz module from their eBay store or their site, the URL of which escapes me for now, sorry. Get the one with a diode already in it, they're about $4-5 and shipping. You just need a battery pack then and you're good, it's all you'll need.

You could also consider using a decent green laser module.
The brightness is much greater at a low power.
I can set one up measured to 1-5mW with IR filtering.

If interested I can make you a custom mount in aluminum
with the laser and power supply of choice.

You could go with batteries, or an AC wall adapter.

I would just need basic measurement of where it would mount
and some pics.

Hello Mr. Wannaburn Thank you for the offer. For now I will decline. This is a simple locating device. I think I can put togeather a mount myself. I will keep you in mind incase I fail. Off to Ebay thanks all.