A light ranging system including a shaft having a longitudinal axis; a light ranging device configured to rotate about the longitudinal axis of the shaft, the light ranging device including a light source configured to transmit light pulses to objects in a surrounding environment, and detector circuitry configured to detect reflected portions of the light pulses that are reflected from the objects in the surrounding environment and to compute ranging data based on the reflected portion of the light pulses; a base subsystem that does not rotate about the shaft; and an optical communications subsystem configured to provide an optical communications channel between the base subsystem and the light ranging device, the optical communications subsystem including one or more turret optical communication components connected to the detector circuitry and one or more base optical communication components connected to the base subsystem.