While price is always a factor in outfitting a robot, there might be some benefit to spending more.
In considering the $80 YDLIDAR X4 vs the $135 LD06
Starting Current: 300 vs 450 mA (- This should allow using the Raspberry Pi3B+ USB power)
Operating Current: 180 vs 350 mA
Life: 20,000 hrs vs 1500 hrs
Size: 38x38x33 vs 102x56x52 (LD06 is tiny by comparison)
Laser: 25mW vs 3mW peak
Interface: Internal USB vs external USB to serial board
Cuteness: LD06 wins this one hands-down.
It does look cool. I saw someone tweet about it this weekend:
But I didn’t know the specs. They look really good. Of course I have the YDLIDAR already, but for my next robot…
/K
One of the quotes I see all the time on the drone forums I lurk is “Buy nice or buy twice.”
Of course this is heavily dependent on your budget and your realistic needs. In my case I don’t need to buy a $4,000 quadra-copter to have fun and I don’t yet need a fancy scope enough to justify spending $400+ for a nice Rigol 100+MHz scope.
It does look nice and for your 'bot it might be the best choice.
