Pan-tilt HAT with Laser diode - possible?

Hi,

would it be possible to mount and power a Laser diode on the pan-tilt HAT instead of the camera or LED strip?

trying to build a laser turret of sorts for automatic pointing. For safety reasons I also want to limit the laser to only 3 seconds or so.

Cheers

I would think so, for mine I 3D printed a mount for a LASER time of flight sensor.

Here’s an example I came across not long ago. It doesn’t use the Pimoroni PanTiltHat, but it should be in theory the same principle:

how did you wire the diode? as I understand the HAT only uses the I2C GPIO’s right?

Here’s how it was attached:

I just soldered some headers to it and connected them with jumpers to the Pi. If you’re using the HAT you’ll have to figure out a way to access the pins you need.

not to hijack valentingalea, but:

damn! dead brill! love it! :heart:

Watching the bounding box in the video, it seems the detection algorithm is more motion detection than human detection, still, love it.

Just never get the idea to mount a weapon on it, until you have a top secret defence contractor license, as that’s life in federal prison.

I saw one of these types of X/Y tracking rigs when I had sideline access to an American NFL game… a huge 1.5m parabola lexan dish with a mic array at the sweet spot, and a 2-axis controlled mount. Thing was FAST considering the mass on it. (the robotic 4k cameras flying by on wires overhead were no less impressive, though!) Dunno if it was tracking the action, the ball, the triangulated radio transmitter coordinates of the quarterback’s helmet… I wanted to ask, but the sideline AV staff all wear noise-cancelling headsets for a reason - it’s like being at a rock concert. You can’t talk easily.

Is this a proof-of-concept or just a step in your project?

My apologies if I gave you the wrong impression: I didn’t make that example, I just thought it relevant. I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the uploader. :)

Still sound advice though.

ahhh… I did think it was you, I was excited. thanks for clarification, I email’d Andy Eggert, he seems very proud, I’m sure he’ll come here - I linked him this thread hoping to make up for the hijack with some hands-on personal knowledge.

what case did you use btw? I plan to use the solderless solution for the GPIO

Alright I finally managed to do this - check it here: https://valentingalea.github.io/vinyl-shelf-finder/

I got it working with a KY-008.
I plugged it directly into the pins for the LED on the hat and it seems to be fine.
Can’t seem to toggle it on and off though…