I'm revisiting an old project that I abandoned mainly because of the cost
of one component. Hopefully someone has practical experience of a
cheaper source for it or can suggest an alternate method. I've looked
at mirrors (specifically the scanner from a laser printer) but would prefer
to avoid the extra power requirements and moving parts. Audible noise
and/or vibration are considerations, as well as obtaining the most even
light spread possible

I need to make an arc of at least 90 degrees with either a red or IR laser,
about 5mW. The lasers are no problem to get at low cost, but the line
generator lens has so far been tricky. I got a plastic one for $2 which is
about 7mm across with ridges that make a fairly passable line, but
quite a bit of the light is being scattered you couldn't really call it a
sharp line. For intruder detection or something like that it'd be OK but
my target is a series of small detectors 10m away. As each detector
picks up the laser light , the PIC will produce an increasing tone so the
definition of the beam has to be quite good. Some reasonable quality
optics are needed, and that's when I've found the price goes up. Wrong
place to comparison shop, but the only reference I have to these is the
RS catalogue, and both red and IR lasers + LG are around NZ$900. A
local laser supplier was cheaper but it still would've stung. With a
perfectly suitable laser pointer available for next-to-nothing surely an
LG lens shouldn't be THAT expensive

TIA

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