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Bushnell PINPRO Rangefinder For Golf - Teardown

ninjatrent

Bushnell PINPRO Rangefinder For Golf Teardown

 

I found this Rangefinder at a local flea market. It was a great design for its time. Unfortunately it does not work properly so I have taken it apart in order to investigate.  Here are images of the internal components. How would you redesign this device with modern technology?

 

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LCD Display with Ribbon Cable, Piezo Buzzer, Tiny Red LED on lower left side of photo was used to project a

 

Red Dot on Reflective Optical Lenses similar to ones used on guns.

 

 

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Is this an IR sensor? I do not know.

 

 

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The two ribbon cables were labeled RX and TX on the PCB. I believe each cable is 6 or 7 pins, will need to locate my magnifying glass to verify. The lenses for the sensor were adjusted at factory then permanently glued in that position.

 

 

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I have not had time to further research the components on this PCB. One of the chips appears to be a LCD driver and the other a microcontroller to handle the RX / TX Data from Sensor.

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  • 0

    Hi Trent,

     

    Nice post.

    I passed up a golf range finder at a garage sale because it was a simple optical device.

     

    I believe the one you have is an IR laser range finder.

     

    You should find that you just supply a start pulse to the Tx line and the laser shoots a "chirp" burst out.

     

    The RX line should give you a pulse or interrupt when the "chirp" returns.

     

    Distance is just calculated from the time difference.

     

    DAB

  • 0 in reply to DAB

    I was able to get it working for a short period of time. The distance readings were not correct.

     

    What components would you recommend to build a device like this with modern technology?

     

    My brother is an avid golfer. When I showed the rangefinder to him, he suggested that I make a better design.

     

    I would definitely use a better display. ePaper/eInk or OLED type would provide better visibility in daylight viewing conditions.

     

    What type of microcontroller and distance sensor would you recommend for this type of application?

     

    Thank you for your interest in this post.

     

    Trent

Reply
  • 0 in reply to DAB

    I was able to get it working for a short period of time. The distance readings were not correct.

     

    What components would you recommend to build a device like this with modern technology?

     

    My brother is an avid golfer. When I showed the rangefinder to him, he suggested that I make a better design.

     

    I would definitely use a better display. ePaper/eInk or OLED type would provide better visibility in daylight viewing conditions.

     

    What type of microcontroller and distance sensor would you recommend for this type of application?

     

    Thank you for your interest in this post.

     

    Trent

Children
  • 0 in reply to ninjatrent

    I picked up a little device called the LIDAR-lite that I need to play with.

     

    You might take a look at it.

     

    DAB

  • 0 in reply to ninjatrent

    Hey, I'm new here and stumbled upon this post by accident. I have an old father's rangefinder lying around in my garage, which he used for hunting. And I would like to restore it if I can. And if it works out, then I will use it for golf, if it's convenient. And did you manage to do something with this rangefinder in the end?

  • 0 in reply to DAB

    I just had to look up the LIDAR-Lite. It looks like a really fun sensor, tho it only has a range of 40m, a bit short for a drone. I guess the trick is move the detector around with a spinning mirror to get a fast 360 degree view of the surroundings. 

    • LIDAR Lite V3 is a highly integrated, high-performance optical ranging module that can be used in applications such as drones, robots, or unmanned vehicles which require high reliability and powerful functions, and is ultra-small in size. Equipped with standard I2C and PWM interface, it can detect up to 40 meters distance. The modified signal processing scheme increases the measurement speed by 5 times.
    • With the implementation of a new signal processing architecture, LIDAR-Lite 3 will now run at a speed of up to 500 readings per second to provide higher resolution measurements for scanning applications.
    • High performance, low cost, small size, light weight, low power consumption, and dynamically configurable together with I2C communication and processing. The combination device found in LIDAR-Lite, it becomes a practical project to install multiple sensors on Minimal weight and power loss. The beam width of LIDAR-Lite is 0.5°. This narrow beam provides long-range performance while also allowing better target selectivity than ultrasonic sensors.