Best value cross line laser level?

[Deleted member 174758]

But look at the budget - £100 to £200 isn't it? The last time I bought a receiver it was about a ton

 

[robinbanks]

I can't see that achieving much of practical value.

Me neither, which is why the sentence mentioning it was full of "if" - i've only ever used it once when I wanted an X shape to the downlights. It was a response to the original observation in the other thread that the DW088's levelling can't be locked out

"You always mark the middle of the line"

When I get down to the level of precision required to align bathroom tiles to 0.1mm I'll be sure to do that. The thickness of the line on my level has always been more consistent than the tolerance of the materials I've been working with, so it makes no odds.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The reason is much more mundane - say you are installing a false floor in an apartment with multiple rooms, some off other rooms (e.g. en-suites) and with a datum mark out in the corridor, 10 metres away from the front door. Forget using a water level - it wouldn't last 5 minutes (and in any case if you are working one floor up from a finished apartment you wouldn't be allowed to use a water-filled pipe) - so you have to use a laser, and light tends not to travel round corners that well, so to transfer your datum lines into the back of an apartment may take 3 or 4 moves of the laser each potentially introducing an error. If you centre line mark, then you stand a chance of being 2 to 5mm out at the furthest point - if you mark to the top or bottom of the laser line you can double or even triple that error (so up to 15mm out). So what? Well, if your door casings are made to precise sizes with prehung doors a 15mm gap beneath the doors would be regarded as a fail, and with a picky site manager a fix vould prove difficult and costly...

If you develop a consistent approach to any job it always reduces the chances of failure

And BTW, lasers are a lot less accurate than 0.1mm. Next time you get the chance look up the manufacturer's data for yours

 

[RandomGrinch]

I wanted to batten out and level a small ceiling, so I was looking for a cheap and cheerful 360° laser.
I am usually weary of the cheapest option, but didn't want to spend £££'s for a one off job.
At £30, I tried this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B08DHT3VWN

At that price, I was prepared to bin it if it was carp; but it's actually been brilliant.
I wouldn't recommend it for pro use, but for a difficult one-off DIY job, I was pleasantly surprised by just how good it was!

 

[opps]

Forget using a water level - it wouldn't last 5 minutes (and in any case if you are working one floor up from a finished apartment you wouldn't be allowed to use a water-filled pipe)

Going slightly off topic.. I did purchase an unvented water level years ago. It was a PITA. I was trying to find levels on my own. I gave up in the end. This was pre-internet. Can a single person work with the vented versions, by that, I mean will they let the air in and out automatically? With mine, i found myself constantly walking back and forth to remove the caps, put them back on and... repeat and rinse....

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Can a single person work with the vented versions, by that, I mean will they let the air in and out automatically?

Unfortunately they don't let air out automatically, so that makes it a two man job (or one man and an apprentice) with walkie talkies or mobile phones over long distances (say on the roof of a big building - prior to that it was hand signals). For that reason there was, for a while in the 80s and 90s, an electronic water level with a manual valve which would beep when the water hit a certain level in the vial. They were utterly useless on big jobs with loads of background noise because you couldn't hear them more than 20 or so feet away...

Which, I suppose, is why lasers took over so completely, despite their tremendous initial cost even only 5 years ago, let alone when they first appeared.

 

[opps]

Unfortunately they don't let air out automatically, so that makes it a two man job (or one man and an apprentice) with walkie talkies or mobile phones over long distances (say on the roof of a big building - prior to that it was hand signals). For that reason there was, for a while in the 80s and 90s, an electronic water level with a manual valve which would beep when the water hit a certain level in the vial. They were utterly useless on big jobs with loads of background noise because you couldn't hear them more than 20 or so feet away...

Which, I suppose, is why lasers took over so completely, despite their tremendous initial cost even only 5 years ago, let alone when they first appeared.

Thanks, I thought that I was "challenged". So each of the two men guestimate the level, lift the caps and add more water as required?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I had a look around for one of those electronic doohickeys on sale in the UK, but they seem to have disappeared. In fact the only one I could find was the Zircon, still available in the USA, which looks like a consumer level version of the ones we occasionally used to see:

 

[Deleted member 174758]

So each of the two men guestimate the level, lift the caps and add more water as required?

Fix both vials on the hose with valves open and fill the hose with water until water is about half way up the vials when both are held together. Close the valves/fix the tops. Fix the apprentice's vial to the wall (or wherever your datum is) so that the water meniscus lines up with the datum. Feed the hose out to where you want the datum to be transferred to. Lift the vial to where you think the datum should be and get the apprentice to open the valve at his end. Slowly open the valve at your end and watch if the water drops or rises in the vial. If the water drops lower your vial, if it rises lift your vial - adjust the position of your vial until the meniscus is at the middle of the vial. Get the apprentice to read off the difference between the datum and the menuscus (the water level I have is graduated in 1mm increments) and let you know so you can mark the actual datum correctly. If his meniscus is, say, 8mm below the datum then you need to mark the datum at your end at 8mm above the menuscus as well

Bear in mind that I haven't done this for a while, but basically that's how it works - sort of

Both Stanley and Stabila still make the vials, but they no longer do the fancier type with proper valves, but the graduated vials make transferring differences a lot faster

 

[lostinthelight]

Before I bought my laser level I made a water level that I could easily use myself and do still use it for some tasks

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Easy enough over 5 to 10 feet - a lot less easy over 50 to 100 ft

 

[lostinthelight]

Easy enough over 5 to 10 feet - a lot less easy over 50 to 100 ft

I beg to differ on that one JAK, I can place the main reservoir in a central location and measure 60 feet either way even around corners .

 

[lostinthelight]

I had a look around for one of those electronic doohickeys on sale in the UK, but they seem to have disappeared. In fact the only one I could find was the Zircon, still available in the USA, which looks like a consumer level version of the ones we occasionally used to see:

I don't know if they've improved now but I still have an electronic one bought 20+ years ago which I gave up on as too temperamental and slow to react,you had to put salt water in it to conduct across the contacts.

 

[Notch7]

although the ability of top end rotary models to be stopped and show a visible dot or do a narrow segment of an arc oscillation is great, it comes with a price bracket well above the £200 max mark mentioned earlier

I use a leica model, which does rotary and oscillation, but it was over £500

I kept it after my company closed and still use it for the occasional job

Its fantastic even for just doing a site survey for a new external door set -shining the laser through a doorway or window allows an easy way of measuring internal FFL and external DPC levels, without having to balance a level across a door threshold and hoping youve measured from the same side of the level etc etc

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I can place the main reservoir in a central location and measure 60 feet either way even around corners .

Like to tell us where you can buy thise these days? I haven't seen a centre reservoir model advertised in something like 20 years