Sound Controlled LASER

Motion and Adjustment of a laserbeam with a stereo sound amplifier.

Warning !! Use Laser Safety Glasses

1-2 laser pointer(s)
1 Stereo amplifier connected to a computer
2 wounded coils of 4 Ω each instead of speakers.
1 Permanent magnet.
1 mirror
1 spring
some wiring
And a scope / tone generator from http://www.sillanumsoft.org/

wind 2 coils with relays wire from a 220/12 volt transformer secundary side , say about 50 windings.
Dip them in glue and let them harden.

Connect them to speaker wire and link them to the amplifier.
A few brackets to set them properly straight up and in a 90 degree angle to each other.

Take a piece of mirror and glue that to a piece of permanent magnet.
Glue the magnet to a ballpoint pen spring.
Attach the whole to a sub base.

And you're ready

Connect the amplifier to the computer

Run the scope , start the wave generator and adjust the settings.

Test the frequencies (you should see the mirror moving)
On the soundtrack Frozen from Madonna I found a frequency with a high output swing (THX Madonna)
It's around 10 Hertz..
I'm using a different PC and a very small amplifier now , it was a shelved project.
Finding frequencies somewhere between 50 and 70 hertz.

Depending on the coils you should test this by yourself.
It completely depend on the coils and distances towards the magnet.
When the mirror / magnet jitters too much insert some foam into the spring.

You can use also any audio file , music or sound via the output of the PC.


Safety : put your goggles ON !!

What you actually see are 2 lasers on ONE moving mirror.

I'm not used making video's, but for this , it should work ;-)

Switching on and off the left and / or the right channel of the tone generator gives a horizontal or a vertical line.

It is not a complete line yet but an ellipsoid .

This will follow in the next step.

with both channels on , you see a figure which is completely adjustable.

My amplifier is only 2.5 watt pro channel which gives just a small figure (8 inches) , 10 -20 watt pro channel gives about a size of 3 feet on the ceiling with the mirror on the floor.

Instead of a magnet/mirror on a spring I am working on a magnet floating on it's own magnetic field.

It works with 2 fridge magnets.
One attached to the bottom , the other one with the mirror on it in a tube with guides so it cannot turn,
only move down on one side via some sort of cross hairs.

This to avoid jitter and an ellipsoid. The magnetic field holds the top_magnet against the limit, it can only move down in a designed way namely along the slide holes.

Thus creating a complete controllable movement in 2 directions or a combination of the two , depending on the EM-field of both magnets.

The mirror on top of the floating magnet is then replaced with a micro prism for high accuracy.

Then a second and third laser with the same setup....
Feel free to continue on this idea or ask me , just remind that it came from me ;-) (THX, T L )

I have to return to my ongoing projects because they are more pressing at present.

I want to thank a few people who gave me the inspiration ,
off course Madonna ,
Alfredo for the Scope Software and
Vector Engineering for the Drawing Software.

Further the planning is to build 3 complete mirrors  Lasers in R-G-B colors.

Implementing ON/Off and voltage regulating of the Lasers.

With a PLC I can create the Z-axis and ??? a free standing Hologram. !!

Something like this :

www.extremetech.com/extreme/175486-a-new-hydrogel-uses-holograms-to-warn-you-about-your-health

A paperweight with a football player in it.

Just a little test.

They made these paperweights with a laser , So they had a Z - axis....

Makes me wonder , creating a Z-axis for myself !!