Lasers rule.
Anyone know of a good source of information for how to get the most
out of lasers for a given application? Seems to me that cabinet
installs could be a snap with a plumb and level lines automatically
displayed on the walls.
Is it bad to want to provide the highest quality cabinetry at a
reasonable price? Efficiency gains through the exploitation of modern
technology are really on my mind tonight.
JP
Filth? Apparently he doesn't seem to think very highly of lasers.
<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Sun, 5 Sep 2004 13:39:46 -0500, [email protected] (p_j) wrote:
>
> >Unisaw A100 <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> A'yup, you have to God Bless Al Gore for inventing rotary
> >> lasers.
> >
> >Leave God out of your filth.
>
>
> got one, Keeter.
>
> 'course, those ones aren't any good to eat, and if you throw them back
> they just breed.
>
> hmmm.... what to do...
Unisaw A100 <[email protected]> wrote:
> A'yup, you have to God Bless Al Gore for inventing rotary
> lasers.
Leave God out of your filth.
"Jay Pique" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Lasers rule.
>
> Anyone know of a good source of information for how to get the most
> out of lasers for a given application? Seems to me that cabinet
> installs could be a snap with a plumb and level lines automatically
> displayed on the walls.
>
> Is it bad to want to provide the highest quality cabinetry at a
> reasonable price? Efficiency gains through the exploitation of modern
> technology are really on my mind tonight.
>
> JP
It's certainly not bad to want to provide the best one can provide Jay, but
I don't know that I'd suggest that lasers are better than water levels or
even bubble levels. A long time ago we installed some ceiling grid with a
laser for part of it and a water level for the other part. This was a very
expensive laser and not the cheap laser levels you typically find at the
BORG, etc. We found the water level to be every bit as accurate as the
laser. I only tell this to say that you can provide the very best without
having to go to the point of using lasers to do so. It's not the technology
that makes a good job, it's the commitment we carry into the job that makes
a good job. Efficiency? If you had to do long - very long runs of
something then a laser would be more efficient, but for hanging cabinets or
even ceiling grid for the average sized room, I'm not convinced that there
is an increase in efficiency with the laser. Just my two cents worth.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
This may just be anecdotal but when they laid out my pool and wired in the
steel they used a laser but when they shot the concrete and trowled the top
beam they used a water level. He said the steel can be adjusted but that
concrete is forever and the water level is more accurate. After all we will
judge his work by where the top of the water hits the edge of the pool.
On 04 Sep 2004 03:52:01 GMT, [email protected] (Greg) wrote:
>He said the steel can be adjusted but that
>concrete is forever and the water level is more accurate.
I don;t think accuracy is necessarily the issue, so much as
reliability. It's just very, very hard to mis-read a water level.
--
Smert' spamionam
Bill Rogers wrote:
> On 04 Sep 2004 03:52:01 GMT, [email protected] (Greg) wrote:
>
>>This may just be anecdotal but when they laid out my pool and wired in the
>>steel they used a laser but when they shot the concrete and trowled the
>>top beam they used a water level. He said the steel can be adjusted but
>>that concrete is forever and the water level is more accurate. After all
>>we will judge his work by where the top of the water hits the edge of the
>>pool.
>
> It is not more accurate.
You've hit one of my hot buttons, the practice of sticking a laser on any
kind of piece of crap that comes along and claiming that the laser somehow
makes it accurate. For the situation described the water level _is_ more
accurate. The laser produces a _straight_ line, but that line is only as
_level_ as the laser itself, which is typically levelled with a single
bubble, while the water level uses a baseline the length of the pool or
fence or whatever is being measured. The "right" way to use a laser in
that circumstance would be to level the beam against the water level.
> It is handier
Actually, the laser is generally "handier"--set up one tool and level it and
turn it on and you've got a reasonably accurate reference line all the way
around the area as long as nobody bangs into the stand that the laser is
on, with the advantage that it doesn't get covered up when you paint or
install stuff. Even there though, "laser accuracy" is misleading--what
you're getting is "rotating mirror accuracy" and it's only as level as the
bubble in the gadget lets you make it.
> and cheaper, and adequate
> ...quite adequate. Using a simple latch-on line level [the cheapest
> you can find] and a chalk line, I snapped a line around a 30' by 30'
> house for the first layer of siding with my helper. It was dead on
> when the last line met the first.
>
> Lasers are used to measure distances as far away as the moon. We
> don't really need that accuracy; it's superfluous, a hook to get
> people to buy something more expensive.
Further, the lasers typically sold for carpentry use aren't necessarily
providing any more accuracy than other methods. For distance measurement
take a look at the specs on a $500 Leica LRF1200 with its +/-3 feet
accuracy and 33 foot minimum range and consider that that's Leica--optical
equipment doesn't _get_ any better than Leica--and then consider that the
40 buck crap from Home Depot doesn't even use the laser for measurement, it
uses it as a pointer for an ultrasonic rangefinder that only works well off
a bare wall.
> It has good uses in
> surveying, but for hanging cabinets? There's a fair bit of "play" in
> the water level of a swimming pool, especially with kids splashing
> around. Also, the water level is never to the top. You might notice
> a drop of a few inches if it ocurred, but certainly don't need to
> worry about laser accuracy.
> Bill.
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
On 04 Sep 2004 03:52:01 GMT, [email protected] (Greg) wrote:
>This may just be anecdotal but when they laid out my pool and wired in the
>steel they used a laser but when they shot the concrete and trowled the top
>beam they used a water level. He said the steel can be adjusted but that
>concrete is forever and the water level is more accurate. After all we will
>judge his work by where the top of the water hits the edge of the pool.
It is not more accurate. It is handier and cheaper, and adequate
...quite adequate. Using a simple latch-on line level [the cheapest
you can find] and a chalk line, I snapped a line around a 30' by 30'
house for the first layer of siding with my helper. It was dead on
when the last line met the first.
Lasers are used to measure distances as far away as the moon. We
don't really need that accuracy; it's superfluous, a hook to get
people to buy something more expensive. It has good uses in
surveying, but for hanging cabinets? There's a fair bit of "play" in
the water level of a swimming pool, especially with kids splashing
around. Also, the water level is never to the top. You might notice
a drop of a few inches if it ocurred, but certainly don't need to
worry about laser accuracy.
Bill.
On 04 Sep 2004 03:52:01 GMT, [email protected] (Greg) wrote:
>This may just be anecdotal but when they laid out my pool and wired in the
>steel they used a laser but when they shot the concrete and trowled the top
>beam they used a water level. He said the steel can be adjusted but that
>concrete is forever and the water level is more accurate. After all we will
>judge his work by where the top of the water hits the edge of the pool.
Probably a reasonable assessment. The precision of the laser is
dependent on getting the platform dead level at the laser source. Any
small angular error in that setting will directly translate into off-level
errors at the destination (times 2). If the level is set perfectly, there
won't be any difference between it and the water level, but even a small
angular error can translate into a large (read noticeable) vertical
displacement over long distances that would occur with something the size
of a swimming pool. The water level on the other hand, is going to be
correct no matter where you put it and is referenced at the destination.
On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 11:45:22 -0500, John <[email protected]> calmly
ranted:
>Folks buying laser levels should always check the accuracy specs, some
>of the low end (even some of the high end) laser levels are not all
>that accurate over a 50ft run (or longer)
They're not pushing the photons fast enough so the laser
line droops?!? Amazing!
.-.
Life is short. Eat dessert first!
---
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development
On Mon, 6 Sep 2004 09:14:31 -0600, Greg wrote
(in article <[email protected]>):
>> laser levels are not all
>>> that accurate over a 50ft run (or longer)
>>
>> They're not pushing the photons fast enough so the laser
>> line droops?!? Amazing!
>
> It is a question of "level" vs "straight"
Yep,
Many people don't realize that the earth ain't flat :^)
Besides, the typical lasers in levels have a certain amount of beam
divergence. I'd still love to buy one someday to take the drudgery of toting
a water level around outside for setting fence posts or the wall marking to
hang shelves...
-BR
Bruce <[email protected]> writes:
[...]
> Besides, the typical lasers in levels have a certain amount of beam
> divergence. I'd still love to buy one someday to take the drudgery of toting
*all* lasers have some amount of beam divergence, usually about
1 mrad. If you want less divergence you need a beam with bigger
diameter, which is the reason that if you really try to measure the
distance to the moon with a laser you have to widen the beam using a
large telescope to at least one meter diameter.
Only a laser beam of infinite diameter would have no divergence.
For detaile: Look up "gaussian beams".
--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
mailto:[email protected] Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23
Larry Jaques wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 11:45:22 -0500, John <[email protected]> calmly
> ranted:
>
>>Folks buying laser levels should always check the accuracy specs, some
>>of the low end (even some of the high end) laser levels are not all
>>that accurate over a 50ft run (or longer)
>
> They're not pushing the photons fast enough so the laser
> line droops?!? Amazing!
It's not that the line "droops" it's that the line is only as level as the
laser which is producing the beam. And there's no magic in lasers that
makes them self-levelling.
> .-.
> Life is short. Eat dessert first!
> ---
> http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
Folks buying laser levels should always check the accuracy specs, some
of the low end (even some of the high end) laser levels are not all
that accurate over a 50ft run (or longer)
Don't know about you, but I think I would tend to avoid products that
state +/- 0.25in over a 50ft length - as I can definitely do BETTER
accuracy with lower tech/cost equipment
John
On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 03:30:42 GMT, "Mike Marlow"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>"Jay Pique" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> Lasers rule.
>>
>> Anyone know of a good source of information for how to get the most
>> out of lasers for a given application? Seems to me that cabinet
>> installs could be a snap with a plumb and level lines automatically
>> displayed on the walls.
>>
>> Is it bad to want to provide the highest quality cabinetry at a
>> reasonable price? Efficiency gains through the exploitation of modern
>> technology are really on my mind tonight.
>>
>> JP
>
>It's certainly not bad to want to provide the best one can provide Jay, but
>I don't know that I'd suggest that lasers are better than water levels or
>even bubble levels. A long time ago we installed some ceiling grid with a
>laser for part of it and a water level for the other part. This was a very
>expensive laser and not the cheap laser levels you typically find at the
>BORG, etc. We found the water level to be every bit as accurate as the
>laser. I only tell this to say that you can provide the very best without
>having to go to the point of using lasers to do so. It's not the technology
>that makes a good job, it's the commitment we carry into the job that makes
>a good job. Efficiency? If you had to do long - very long runs of
>something then a laser would be more efficient, but for hanging cabinets or
>even ceiling grid for the average sized room, I'm not convinced that there
>is an increase in efficiency with the laser. Just my two cents worth.
Jay Pique
>Is it bad to want to provide the highest quality cabinetry at a
>reasonable price? Efficiency gains through the exploitation of modern
>technology are really on my mind tonight.
A good installer not only uses one but knows how to use one.
Something not always automatic.
We're currently on a project doing wall paneling with 1/2"
particleboard being used as an underlayment to the finished
paneling. The first thing done is a rotary laser is set up
to find all the "high spots" (actually where the wall bows
out) on the wall. Those are shimmed. Then the underlayment
is applied. Then it's only a very thin shim here and there
as needed. In the end we're something near to a perfectly
plumb surface.
A'yup, you have to God Bless Al Gore for inventing rotary
lasers.
On Sun, 5 Sep 2004 13:39:46 -0500, [email protected] (p_j) wrote:
>Unisaw A100 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> A'yup, you have to God Bless Al Gore for inventing rotary
>> lasers.
>
>Leave God out of your filth.
got one, Keeter.
'course, those ones aren't any good to eat, and if you throw them back
they just breed.
hmmm.... what to do...