Laser Beam Alarm System with Rechargeable Battery for Laser

Step 8 How I Put Together The Laser Unit

This is how I assembled and presented my laser unit. I found that just sticking the laser on the box made it very difficult to aim it into the LDR of the second unit. So I pulled apart an old torch that I had which used a flexi arm so that you can aim the light around corners. I salvaged the flexi arm and ran all the wires to the laser down the flexi tube, hot glued the laser on the end of the arm, covered the laser in shrink wrap to hide the hot glue, and mounted it on the box.

I think it works much better this way and it adds another degree of advancement. I also used a push on/off switch for the laser; some more switches to charge the laser, and used some crimp connector so that I could make my own sockets for the solar panel. This enabled me to remove the solar panel when I didnt need it any more.

Oh and one last note about this laser unit. Because we are making the solar panel charge the battery with 10% of the batteries capacity, it will take 10 hours to charge from dead in full sun. Which is pretty good?

Comments

[cknudstrup]

One thing you may want to include is a Diode in the Charging circuit from the Solar panel so it does not rob power from the battery at night unless your solr panel already has a diode built into it. Also you really only need one switch from the solar panel tothe circuit on either the positive or negative circuit as either one will cut the power from the solar panel to the rest of the circuit. Its not wrong the way you have it just overly redundant.

Good job as a first major project though.

Chris

[tomx63]

Dude, I've just started studying electronics and I have to say that this is quite impressive and very inspiring. Really awesome work! Thanks!

[revhead]

thanks mate. yeah this was my first real electronics project that i put together. i made it for my year 12 systems class.
u can tell its my first large-ish project cos the circuit board is just a mess of wires haha. if i were to make it again i would make it alot neater and clean looking. thanks for the positive comment!! ifyou end up making this and need a hand just shoot me a message and il do my best to help.

[tomx63]

Yeah man. Thanks for the offer. I'll almost certainly take you up on that. I want to use this idea to turn on a light for some pre-determined amount of time. Originally I thought PIR motion detector, but I live close to a wooded area and I don't want the light coming on every time some critter gets too close. So the laser is an awesome idea.
Just curious... had you given any thought to also making the alarm unit work off of a renewable energy source?

[revhead]

that sounds like a cool idea! just make sure you buy yourself a good laser that can deal with being on for very long periods of time. yeah i did think about it but i was on a tight dead line because i had to finish the project asap so i could work on the folio that accompanied it for my year 12 subject. another idea i was going to integrate was to have a 5v DC converter option on the laser and or alarm unit so you can decide whether to run the system off battery, solar, or mains power?? never got around to it. anyways good luck with designing and building your project! id be happy to help if you run into any problems.

[garrys newman]

fail!!!!!!!!!!!
always put female on live coponents (solar panel)
and male conectors on power needing coponents (charger)

but everyone make fail in their life   me too i did some fail XD

[revhead]

i think that commenting with "fail!!!!!!!!!!!" is a little harsh and kind of rude, its good to point out peoples mistakes because it helps us to learn from them but don't tell them they "failed" just say that they made a mistake or suggest an improvement. i hope you don't go around to other peoples instructables and tell them all that they "failed" in doing something.