I have experience with laser show equipment.
If you were to make a laser tool path display on your own, there are two issues:
1) Unless you are prepared to have a very dark room whenever you use it, you would need more than the <5 mW a standard red laser pointer puts out. And this means expensive.
2) The scanners are very expensive if you want any accuracy at all.
I actually tried to build a laser scanner using a 5 mW 635 nm (i.e. high visibility red) laser pointer, with first surface mirrors glued to metal axles that turned in ball bearings, driven by (slaughtered) speakers. It worked for simple "moving to the music" displays but were very weak even in a very dark room.
Also, no accuracy. You need a closed loop scanner (this is a servo system just like a servo motor/driver) to get positional accuracy.
Arvid |