I have a Magni Silver and I connected a laser XV-11 Neato Lidar to do the navigation. But only in raspberry with the ubiquityrobot linux image, after running the laser for a brief time the ttyUSB0 port stops receiving messages.
The system log message when this occurs is as follows:
You must use a very good power source for the raspberry Pi 3 (as always) and use a short and very good USB cable to the controller so power is fine on the controller and Lidar.
The page I have for a link has disappeared, sorry.
I would not recommend trying to do it all yourself with just a neato lidar and USB serial port as it is more prone to issues but is apparently possible. I have not done that.