Laser Dot - Pan & Tilt Gimbal (simple printing, involved integration)

This thing has only two printed parts, but suddenly a couple of stepper motors and a laser pointer engine become biaxial gimbal for remotely putting a red dot on whatever you want! (Or where your cat might want it: http://youtu.be/KbmjemYGDg4)

How you use it is up to you. You'll need stepper motor drivers and some kind of controller to tell them what to do. My set up is an Arduino talking through a couple of EasyDrivers.

The laser I used is a Quarton Laser Module VLM-650-03 LPA

Things to buy:

• NEMA 8 Stepper
• NEMA 17 Stepper
• 4X M2 x 8 screws for the NEMA 8 stepper
• a 7mm diameter laser head
• 3X #6-32 x .375" oval point set screws

Good to have around:

• Drill bits that match the shaft sizes of the motors to clean up the parts.
• A #6-32 tap to cut threads for the set screws

Put a dot on it!