Renato made a modification to the sicklms node which consisted on applying a delay of 22 seconds to it since it is approximately the time that the physical laser takes to power up properly.
I had to modify the ssc_laser.vcg file since with the original one the readings of the laser weren't displayed on rviz. What I did was to check the topics published by and subscribed to the rviz and sicklms nodes.
The changes I made are in lines 5 and 22. Instead of /laser topic I placed /base_scan topic. This worked honestly thanks to a process of trial and error.
In order to run the rviz and sicklms nodes I followed these steps:
1. Run a core
$ roscore
2. Configure the laser port
$ sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB1
$ ls -l /dev/ttyUSB1
And something like this should be displayed:
crw-rw-rw- 1 root dialout 166, 0 2009-10-27 14:18 /dev/ttyUSB1
3. Run the sicklms node
$ roscore
$ roscd sscrovers_laser_pub
$ cd bin
$ ./sicklms _port:=/dev/ttyUSB1 _baud:=38400
Connection must be achieved:
Requesting measured value data stream...
Data stream started!
4. Start rviz
$ roscd rviz
$ ./bin/rviz -d `rospack find sscrovers_laser_pub`/ssc_laser.vcg
5. Check the communication among nodes through specific topics
$ rxgraph
