Laser Pointer Ring

Hello!

This is my first project :). A while ago my father told me about Instructables. It sounded fun, so I wanted to make a project to. When I saw this contest, I had the idea of making a laser pointer inside a ring so I tried to make one :).

- Laser pointer pen

- CAD files for the ring

- 3D printer

- Soldering iron

- Small screws (I used 4mm long screws) + fitting screwdriver

- Electronic wire cutter

- Wire

Remove the batteries from the pen. I started with a saw and tried to saw the casing at the laser side to remove the outer layer and keeping the laser and electronics intact. When I noticed that the outer casing as too think, I took off the clip on the side and used an electronics wire-cutter to remove the outer casing from the side. This worked a lot better than the front because this part is not as thick as the front side. Make sure to be careful when doing this. The casing can be sharp and the components are fragile. If you saw inside the laser or the PCB, the laser may stop working. When the laser was removed, I measured the laser and the PCB attached to the laser and tested the laser for functionality. This makes sure that the laser is still working and that I did not break anything.

The parts that will be reused are:

- A button (until now still attached to the PCB)

- Batteries

- Laser with PCB

The PCB is longer then is necessary, because all the components and the wiring on the PCB are in the first cm measuring from the laser. This means that the button and the light are controlled by the remaining part of the PCB. The button can be de-soldered and the remaining part of the PCB can be cut off to save space. I figured out that the negative wire is connected to the solder pad where the negative mounting wire should go and the positive wire is connected to a resistor and that resistor is connected to the solder pad where the positive mounting wire should go. This is retested and it still works (see video).

After measuring the reworked laser and the other components, I designed a ring. There is still room for some upgrades, it is still a prototype... But it is something :P.

After the ring was made, all the components were tested for fitting. After that, the components were soldered as shown in the diagram above.

Batt is the batteries where the positive side is the long bar.

Sw is the button that is added.

Led is the laser with PCB where the positive mounting wire is soldered to the switch and the negative side is soldered to the negative side of Batt1.

The positive side of the batteries is the flat side, not the rounded side.

I first fitted the electronic components in place. I first wired the positive wire from the laser to the button. Then I connected the positive and the negative wire to the batteries. The batteries are also connected trough mounting wires. The wire goes from the positive side of the battery to the negative side of the other battery. When everything was fit tested, I could solder everything and close the casing. Then I used three small screws that can be tightened to make sure it doesn’t fall apart when playing with it.

When finished, the ring can be worn like a normal ring but feels a bit bigger mostly because of the height. It is designed to wear the ring on your right forefinger. To turn the laser on, you can press the button with your right thumb. To turn the laser off, you just have to release the button. The best part is using the laser to point at objects or to distract the cat or dog :).