Lidar-Lite shield tube

thingiverse

The Lidar-Lite from PulsedLight is a pretty handy widget, but my unit was spraying quite a bit of IR outside the main axis of the collimated laser beam; some internal scattering maybe. As a result, I could detect a nearby surface with scattered illumination, even when it wasn't on-axis. Also, it wouldn't hurt the receiver to have a sun-shade in place, so I came up with this solution. The wall thickness is 0.8 mm and with a 0.4mm print head, it works best if you set infill to 100%. An OpenSCAD model is included. UPDATE: Version 4 has more baffles (# of rings is a parameter), tighter ID of baffle rings, and improved mechanical fit to Lidar case. Note that many plastics are translucent at 900 nm, and I could see the beam through the wall with an IR camera before I painted it. To work as intended, you need to paint the inside with an opaque flat black paint (I used "Angelus Brand Acrylic Leather Paint".) This can be tricky to apply given the internal baffle rings, but an old toothbrush worked nicely.