Hi everyone, this is a project I kind of got stuck in my head, and chances are it's a one off thing just for me, but if there's interest it's also the sort of thing that might be fun to set up a kickstarter or something for so that people who are interested could get one, I really don't know what the impressions for you guys will be on this lol.
So, basically, I got it into my head that it would be pretty cool to have a rail mounted laser rangefinder for scouting stuff out. There is already one product out there, but it's pretty expensive, and while it's rated at a longer range, it doesn't fit what I want very well.
So, the basic idea is to have a rail mount range finder, but have it all fairly low profile, something that in theory wouldn't interfere with your sight picture if mounted directly in front of a scope.
I also wanted the display to be a separate section, again something low profile that could mount underneath the scope on the rail, that way a quick glance down would show the readout, and not be a really big target hanging off the side of your gun that would be easy to shoot out, or get caught in stuff like brush.
So, I poked around alibaba for quite a while and found quite a nice compact, 600m laser rangefinder module, pretty much the smallest that has a long range, and also wasn't crazy expensive for a sample unit as I could find.
I've got it here, so I made a model of a picatinny rail and the rangefinder unit and right now I'm just working on designing what the case would look like roughly as I don't have a super good picture of what it would be like in my mind.
I know that I will have a good thick piece of glass or lexan/margard in front of the rangefinder, because I want it to have built in protection from bb impacts, this is something that the other rail mount rangefinder doesn't have, and it would really, really suck to get it smashed out.
Anyhow, right now I'm trying to figure out if I want to go with a pretty slick, contoured sort of design, or something boxier, maybe a little angular or more like a PEQ box, I don't have a battery one to hand for a good sort of look at, but I also don't really want this to just be a PEQ box clone that has totally different functionality, I want it to be it's own sort of thing.
These are two super duper rough designs that I sketched out.
The angular one is really rough and that's probably why I'm not much of a fan of it, and it would also be harder to mount right by a scope without causing line of sight issues.
Another factor is that I think it might be good to add some sort of second functionality to this. In terms of if I was making it to sell this would just increase the price, but some sort of other functionality would be a nice to have.
I don't currently have a laser on my rifle, so I was thinking it might be cool to integrate one, it would fit nicely in the first smooth design, be centered on the rail if I wanted, and not super expensive, however I would also need to figure out how to make an adjustment mechanism that actually works, and doesn't lose it's position, something which I'm not quite sure how to do.
The laser would be red or green, and if you were a night vision guy the rangefinder uses an IR one so that's sort of built in functionality.
Another thing that could be good is a flashlight of some sort, however high power lights are quite large, and quite power hungry, as well as generating heat that needs to be handled. IR illuminators have the same sort of issues associated with them, and I see them on a lot of combo light laser boxes, and I mean it's cool to have but I know I can't afford night vision, so practical use seems fairly limited.
Something like a regular flashlight would basically require interchangeable batteries which is harder to do if you are making the thing out of plastic since you can't use the the case as a ground for one side of something like a cr123, so I'm leaning towards a built in LIPO battery, something like 800mah.
Oh yes, and the display will be OLED, and I'm thinking of adding a light sensor and gyroscope into this, so that basically when it was dark out the display would dim downa bunch, and with the rifle aimed down turn off and stop range finding so that the display and the IR laser weren't on for sneaking around. I haven't messed with the OLED I have much but I should be able to dim it.
So, for those who took the time to read this, and even moreso those that share their thoughts, I greatly appreciate it.
I'll mention again that this is probably just a one off project for me since it's practical uses in airsoft are probably pretty limited, so I'm not all gung ho to sell a bunch of these, but who knows maybe some of you guys will think it's kind of a nifty thing at least too.
edit: software stuff should be relatively easy to figure out once it's time, depending on features I want to add and whatnot, but they sent me the module without the actual wiring harness to connect to it, so I have to wait. I was going to do basic software first, but I guess now I'll work on the case lol. Probably going to be two or three weeks until I get the harness, if the module wasn't so tightly integrated I'd remove the connector to solder directly to it, but there are surface mount components on the opposite side that could fall off if jarred while using my hot air station, so better to wait.