Low cost Lidar recommendations for Raspberry Pi driven rovers

[jim The STEAM Clown - Jim Burnham - [he\him\El]]

Hey All, jim The Steam Clown here, I'm working on a project to add some low cost Lidar to some Raspberry/Jetson Nano driven rovers my students build.  I want to add some low-cost simple lidar capabilities. I'm looking to be able to range distant objects, and maybe do some mapping of a room.  But I'm also looking for a low cost.  

I'm looking for recommendations on low cost lidars. Searching for Lidar + Raspberry Pi stuff online, I can see some single point Lidars in the $25 to $35 dollar range. $50 range for some 360 ones.  but most 360 are over $150

Mostly I'm looking to give my students some labs using a Lidar, and pulling data with Python, and or ROS features like SLAM.  Stuff like map a room, find an object, range objects. I'm going to keep looking at Lidar Instructables and Tutorials, but most of these are using RPLidars and other Lidars in the $100 range… I'm hoping to have a fun solution in the $25-$40 range.

I might be convinced to go the cheaper route, and maybe mount a single point Lidar on a stepper or servo, and scan… 15, 30,45 degrees out front, but I don't have any experience to know if that's a dumb idea.

Thoughts?  Recommendations? What cheap Lidars have folks used?

[Dave Everett]

On Fri, 23 May 2025 at 11:43, jim The STEAM Clown - Jim Burnham - [he\him\El] <jim.the.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

I might be convinced to go the cheaper route, and maybe mount a single point Lidar on a stepper or servo, and scan… 15, 30,45 degrees out front, but I don't have any experience to know if that's a dumb idea.

I have found the single point lidars usually have very poor performance closer than 2m. I built a series of robots for UAH, they specified the Garmin Lidar-lite. It was out by up to 1cm below 2m, the best performance was at greater range suggesting the method of distance measuring may have been timing instead of phase shift.

I'd recommend looking at the accuracy specs in the range you plan on using them for.

Dave

[Ken Gregson]

This could be an option, depending on your range requirement?

https://makerspet.com/blog/xiaomi-lds02rr-lidar-support/

Picked up one from AliExpress a while back for $20, haven't checked prices recently.

Specs, along with others, could be here:

https://github.com/kaiaai/awesome-2d-lidars

-Ken

[Chris Albertson]

You can buy Neato vacuum cleaner LIDARs for as low as $10 each.  Easy to find themfor under $35.   These are 360 degree spinning platforms with enough indoor range for  most homes.   You get 5 scans for second one degree resolution    They are easy to control. with a microcontroller.  I have a few of these and wrote (ported really) a driver and a PCB to make using them easy.

Here is one random example https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808370169831.html

There are many other sellers on Ali Express, eBay and Amazon

Here is what I did to connect the lidar to a Pi4    If I were doing this again, I would use a Pi Pico and not the “‘blue pill”.    The key is to run a PID loop to control the motor speed

https://github.com/chrisalbertson?tab=repositories&q=lidar&type=&language=&sort=

These are really excellent LIDARS for your intended task and dirt cheap.

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[Marco Walther]

On 5/22/25 22:43, Chris Albertson wrote:
> You can buy Neato vacuum cleaner LIDARs for as low as $10 each.  Easy to
> find themfor under $35.   These are 360 degree spinning platforms with
> enough indoor range for  most homes.   You get 5 scans for second one
> degree resolution    They are easy to control. with a microcontroller.
>  I have a few of these and wrote (ported really) a driver and a PCB to
> make using them easy.
>
> Here is one random example https://www.aliexpress.us/

> item/3256808370169831.html <https://www.aliexpress.us/
> item/3256808370169831.html>

> There are many other sellers on Ali Express, eBay and Amazon
>
> Here is what I did to connect the lidar to a Pi4    If I were doing this
> again, I would use a Pi Pico and not the “‘blue pill”.    The key is to
> run a PID loop to control the motor speed
> https://github.com/chrisalbertson?

> tab=repositories&q=lidar&type=&language=&sort= <https://github.com/
> chrisalbertson?tab=repositories&q=lidar&type=&language=&sort=>

>
>
> These are really excellent LIDARS for your intended task and dirt cheap.

Yes. That's the cheap & workable solution. But after adding the micro
controller, ... they cost a little bit more. I have two of those
(outside Neato's;-) or something.

But I'm also happy with the LD06/LD19 lidar's. They are smaller and
better encapsulated and very easy to integrate. Amazon still has them
for around $75
https://www.amazon.com/youyeetoo-D300-Resistant-Raspberry-Tutorial/dp/B0B1QCV4XR

There are many different sellers all over the place and from what I've
seen, the LD06/LD19/D300 are all the same (12m range).

But there seems to be a version called 'LD19 Plus' (maybe other names?)
claiming a 25m range, not sure about that one?! I have seen multiple bad
reviews, no first hand experience!

As always, you have to choose your battles.

Have fun,
-- Marco

>
>
>> On May 22, 2025, at 6:55 PM, Dave Everett <daveev...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 23 May 2025 at 11:43, jim The STEAM Clown - Jim Burnham -
>> [he\him\El] <jim.the.s...@gmail.com

>> <mailto:jim.the.s...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I might be convinced to go the cheaper route, and maybe mount a
>> single point Lidar on a stepper or servo, and scan… 15, 30,45
>> degrees out front, but I don't have any experience to know if
>> that's a dumb idea.
>>
>> I have found the single point lidars usually have very poor
>> performance closer than 2m. I built a series of robots for UAH, they
>> specified the Garmin Lidar-lite. It was out by up to 1cm below 2m, the
>> best performance was at greater range suggesting the method of
>> distance measuring may have been timing instead of phase shift.
>>
>> I'd recommend looking at the accuracy specs in the range you plan on
>> using them for.
>>
>> Dave
>>
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>> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
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>> msgid/hbrobotics/CAG61pbc_nFYRYbroymFJyNz1Jn1sP-
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>
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