07-05-2018, 10:33 AM
Very interesting Cyrano and Jan. Our hat is off to your ingenuity. We've had a fair amount of past experience in laser matters so this thread really captures our interest. We owned a division that dealt with laser alignment tools. This division (BearmerLine) dealt with products that ranged from laser levels to bore sights for .50 Caliber machine guns. In the final analysis we sold the division and the buyers turned our technology into a perimeter swimming pool alarm system. We manufactured our own laser modules in this division because commercially available modules were not acceptable for our purposes for a number of reasons. Please keep in mind though that this was 15 years ago. In our experience then, the devil was not in the electronics but in the mechanics. Everything was terribly heat sensitive and when dealing with collimating optic focal lengths of around a single mm, a lateral shift of .001" in the optical housing arrangement was devastating. If the product contained other mechanical elements i.e. bases, clamps, adjustment screws etc., those became potential sources of error as well. Which brings us to our question for you;
Calibration adjustment before each use was often the bail-out for many of our products. A calibration option for your bevel angle instrument seems obvious and simple to us as well but only if one assumes that the bevel angles on each side of the edge are equal. One would just adjust the knife/laser position until the reflected angles were equal and Voila!, the answer. If it cannot be assumed that the bevel angles are equal then this calibration technique is out the window.
Things have advanced in 15 years and likely our thoughts are mired in the laser stoneage so perhaps this is not a problem at all for you or you have skinned the cat in a better way. In any case, we would be interested in your thoughts as to whether or not you regard any of this is an issue for you and your devices.
Calibration adjustment before each use was often the bail-out for many of our products. A calibration option for your bevel angle instrument seems obvious and simple to us as well but only if one assumes that the bevel angles on each side of the edge are equal. One would just adjust the knife/laser position until the reflected angles were equal and Voila!, the answer. If it cannot be assumed that the bevel angles are equal then this calibration technique is out the window.
Things have advanced in 15 years and likely our thoughts are mired in the laser stoneage so perhaps this is not a problem at all for you or you have skinned the cat in a better way. In any case, we would be interested in your thoughts as to whether or not you regard any of this is an issue for you and your devices.