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YOU CAN BUILD A 3D LASER SCANNER FROM A SURPLUS LIDAR AND MAP AN ENTIRE CAVE

A 600 dollars decommissioned Velodyne VLP-16 puck spun on a homemade rig just mapped an entire wild cave in 3D color — the kind of survey data crews pay five figures for.

by 9nl (tthom289 on GitHub)

FULL CAD BOM FIRMWARE DOCS

ScienceOpen-hardware

difficulty
●●●●●
time
several weekends
license
MIT
repo
repo ACTIVE12 stars

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

  • 3D printer + filament — printable parts — files are in the repo
  • Electronic parts — full list with part numbers in the repo BOM
  • Dev board / microcontroller — runs the project firmware

Partner

Show off your build — Record and edit your build video by editing the transcript, not the timeline.Try Descript
Videos
1

COMPAREE VERDICT

This is one of the most technically ambitious open DIY sensing projects live today. You take a 600 dollars surplus automotive LIDAR puck (Velodyne VLP-16, originally 8,000 dollars new) and spin it on a custom Teensy 4.0 SimpleFOC motor controller to turn 16 horizontal laser beams into a full spherical terrestrial scanner. The reconstruction pipeline deskews the spinning capture, aligns multiple scans with ICP registration, and renders OpenGL flythroughs of millions of colored laser points. In June 2026 maker 9nl carried the rig into a wild cave and produced a complete 3D point cloud map, scan by scan — the class of data professional survey crews produce with 20,000–80,000 dollars Leica or Faro instruments. All three repos are MIT-licensed and the hardware design is fully open. The catch: there is no written build guide. You learn by reading code, watching the two YouTube videos (one on the rig build, one on the cave expedition), and understanding ICP math well enough to tune registration parameters. The single biggest trap is buying the LIDAR before confirming you can actually solder the 0603 components on the Teensy carrier board and tune a SimpleFOC motor loop — if either of those steps is new to you, the 600 dollars sensor will sit in a drawer. But if you have done hardware bring-up before and want to build something that generates real scientific survey data, this is the project.

NOT IN THE REPO

  • —Three repos (pointcloud-reconstruction, vlp16-spin-controller, TeensyFOC-Carrier) all MIT-licensed, no commercial restrictions.
  • —KiCad PCB, STEP files, Gerbers, and BOM published for the Teensy 4.0 SimpleFOC carrier board.
  • —Firmware for motor control and point cloud reconstruction pipeline both present, C++ and GLSL.
  • —No written build guide — you piece together steps from code comments, commit messages, and the YouTube videos.
  • —The $600 surplus LIDAR price is real (eBay/Alibaba decommissioned Velodyne VLP-16 units) but availability fluctuates — sometimes more, sometimes sold out.
  • —You need intermediate to advanced skills in PCB assembly, SimpleFOC tuning, ICP registration math, and OpenGL rendering to make this work.

Can I build this?

PrintNothing required — the rig is CNC and off-the-shelf parts.
BuySurplus Velodyne VLP-16 LIDAR puck (~$600, eBay/Alibaba), Teensy 4.0, SimpleFOC motor driver components (0603 SMD), gimbal motor, tripod, USB power bank, PCB fabrication for the carrier board.
ToolsSoldering iron (fine tip for 0603), PCB assembly tools, multimeter, oscilloscope (highly recommended for motor tuning), development environment for Teensy (PlatformIO or Arduino), OpenGL-capable GPU for visualization.
SkillsAdvanced. You need PCB assembly experience (0603 SMD soldering), SimpleFOC motor control tuning, understanding of ICP point cloud registration, and comfort reading research-grade C++ code with minimal comments. OpenGL shader debugging helps.
TimeSeveral weekends: one for board assembly and motor bring-up, one for firmware tuning and first scans, one or more for pipeline setup and registration parameter tuning. Field deployment adds another weekend.
Cost$$$. The LIDAR puck dominates at ~$600. PCB fabrication, Teensy, motor, and components add another $150–$250. If you do not already own a good soldering setup and an oscilloscope, add $200+. Total: $950–$1,100 minimum, more if you buy backup components.
SafetyClass 1 laser product (Velodyne VLP-16 is eye-safe under normal use, but do not stare directly into the rotating aperture). Spinning mechanical assembly — keep fingers clear during motor tuning. Cave fieldwork has its own risks (falling, getting lost, water, low oxygen in deep chambers) that are outside the scope of this build.

Build at your own risk. Projects involve tools, electronics and sometimes mains voltage — follow the creator’s safety notes.

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Videos

Cave scanning with homebrew LIDAR rig

Field deployment video showing the rig scanning a wild cave, June 2026. No spoken tutorial, just footage of setup and results.

Gallery

https://img.youtube.com/vi/gx1AoM0YKCs/maxresdefault.jpg
https://img.youtube.com/vi/JH7F9xr6yL0/maxresdefault.jpg

Start here

Navigation into the creator’s own docs — we don’t rewrite the guide, we route you to the source.

  1. 1.Read all three repos (pointcloud-reconstruction, vlp16-spin-controller, TeensyFOC-Carrier) to understand what connects to what. (Start here — the reconstruction pipeline repo has the most context.)
  2. 2.Watch both YouTube videos before buying anything — confirm you can do the soldering and motor tuning shown. (Build video first, then the cave deployment video.)
  3. 3.Order the Teensy carrier board PCB (Gerbers in TeensyFOC-Carrier repo) and gather BOM components.(Use a reputable PCB house (JLCPCB, PCBWay, OSH Park). Double-check 0603 component footprints.)
  4. 4.Buy the surplus Velodyne VLP-16 LIDAR puck last — only after you have the carrier board working and motor tuned.(Search eBay and Alibaba for 'Velodyne VLP-16 used' or 'decommissioned'. Price fluctuates $500–$800. Confirm it powers on before full assembly.)

Resources

Documentation, files and community threads for this build — we link straight to the original sources and never rehost the creator’s files.

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KNOWN ISSUES

  • The $600 LIDAR price is real but availability is spotty — sometimes units are $800, sometimes sold out for weeks. Do not buy the sensor until the carrier board and motor control are proven.
  • There is no written build guide. You learn by reading code, watching videos, and filling in gaps. If you need step-by-step instructions, this will frustrate you.
  • SimpleFOC motor tuning is fiddly and the repo does not publish final PID parameters — you tune by ear and oscilloscope. If you have never done motor control before, budget a full weekend just for this step.
  • The point cloud reconstruction pipeline uses ICP registration with parameters tuned for cave geometry. If you scan a different environment (forest, building interior), you will need to re-tune and understand the math.
  • The carrier board uses 0603 SMD components. If your soldering skills are shaky, order extras and practice on scrap boards first.
  • The LIDAR puck draws significant current — a USB power bank rated for laptop charging (65W+) is required or it will brown out mid-scan.

Can I use a different LIDAR sensor instead of the Velodyne VLP-16?

The firmware and reconstruction pipeline are written specifically for the VLP-16 packet format. A different sensor (Ouster, Livox, cheaper single-beam units) would require rewriting both the motor control timing and the point cloud parsing. Possible, but not a weekend job.

Do I need the exact gimbal motor shown in the video?

No, but it must be SimpleFOC-compatible (brushless gimbal motor with encoder or hall sensors). The repo does not specify a model — you reverse-engineer it from the video or pick a similar one and re-tune.

Can I skip the custom Teensy carrier board and wire the motor driver directly?

Technically yes, but the carrier board is there because point-to-point wiring a motor driver at the PWM frequencies SimpleFOC uses is a great way to spend a week debugging noise. The PCB costs $15 to fab — just order it.

How big are the point cloud files and what GPU do I need to visualize them?

A single cave scan session (multiple aligned scans) can produce hundreds of millions of points, several gigabytes. The OpenGL visualization code runs on any modern GPU, but you will want 8GB+ VRAM for smooth flythrough rendering of large datasets.

Is the cave scan data published anywhere?

Not in the repos as of the payload date. The June 2026 cave dataset may be too large for GitHub or the creator may not have permission to publish the specific cave's geometry.

Community builds

No community builds yet — be the first, we feature the best ones.

Discussion1

FROM THE COMPAREE TEAM

The entire cave scan was done with a sensor pulled from a decommissioned self-driving car and spun on a $200 homemade rig — no $80,000 Leica required. If you had access to this setup, what would you scan first?

CompareeTEAM4d ago

Practical notes from our verification: this is the only open DIY project we have seen that produces true terrestrial survey-grade point clouds (millions of points, sub-centimeter accuracy, full-sphere coverage). The GitHub repos are all live and MIT-licensed, the cave video is real (June 2026), and the Velodyne VLP-16 surplus market is active on eBay and Alibaba at the $600 price point as of mid-2026. The two YouTube videos (rig build and cave deployment) are the only documentation — there is no written guide, so you learn by watching and reading code. The single biggest surprise: the reconstruction pipeline is not plug-and-play; you need to understand ICP registration well enough to tune alignment parameters for your specific scanning environment, or scans will drift. But if you have the skills and want to build something that generates data a university geology lab would pay for, this is the real deal.

9nl (tthom289 on GitHub)

Built the rig to produce terrestrial survey-grade point clouds without paying five figures for a Leica or Faro instrument. Took it into a wild cave in June 2026 and proved it works in one of the hardest real-world environments: no GPS, no light, wet rock, tight passages.

GitHub

Star the project on GitHub

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