hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spirograph

polop · Feb 24, 2008

hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spirograph

helo there i am starting a new project to build fro scratch a yellow pionter.
Parts to be used --

2 heatsink from dx70
2 ddl drivers
2 li-po batteries(7.4v wired in parrelel)
stripped out 50mw green pionter
ddl phazor and dx optics
project box switches etc.

I will be a will making this becuase parts from hong kong take ages.

any suggestions - improvements - critisisms - advice.

The one part of this that i am very unsure about is - is it possible to get the brass module out of a dx pionter so that it is its own stand allone module (like an aixiz module)

polop

rkcstr · Feb 25, 2008

Re: powerful hand held yellow/red/green pionter

Looks cool.... but don't the greens usually come with a driver? If so, depending on their required input voltage, you may not need a driver for it, either just run it straight off the battery or add in a voltage regulator if you need to drop the voltage.

I don't know enough to comment on optical stuff, though

FireMyLaser · Feb 25, 2008

Re: powerful hand held yellow/red/green pionter

There the beams cross, I think it should be a 90 degree angle and they are supposed too go through eachoter for the best result. Good luck

polop · Feb 25, 2008

Re: powerful hand held yellow/red/green pionter

they do not cross. the red and green beams come out of their own modules parrelel to each other the green is reflected 90deg by a mirror so that the two beams meet at 90 to be combined by the cube - i may have misunderstood somthing allong the line - and as far as drivers go they will both be ddl drivers with a pot to tune the power levels.

rog8811 · Feb 25, 2008

Re: powerful hand held yellow/red/green pionter

You would do best to put a small heatsink on the LM317 that drives the green, mine gets warm running a 5 mw.....
You will not get much adjustment of the green intensity due to the pump threshold of the crystals so 50mw may still swamp the red.
I would suggest that 20 mw is nearer the mark.

Regards rog8811

polop · Feb 25, 2008

Re: powerful hand held yellow/red/green pionter

1:10 seems a bit steep but as i have a dx 20 i will give it a go before upgrading it. do you have any idea wether the brass module can come out of the dx pens?

wooooooolazer · Feb 26, 2008

Re: powerful hand held yellow/red/green pionter

You dont need a lm317 for the green, it already has an entire circuit meant for it inside.. just put some silicon diodes in series (each drops .7v) until you get to about 3 volts which is what the circuit is meant for, or you could put together a voltage regulater as stated before and just bring it down to 3v.

As for combining everything looks perfect.. and generaly the ratio of red to green is about 1:5 with 1 being green and 5 being red.

To get the dx module out just take off the silver cap by wrapping it in a cloth putting it in a vice and slowly twisting/pulling until it pops off (its not threaded) then get the button out of the way, by pushing it in or pulling it out, then gently push the module out and your done... the spring will be negative and the case will be positive.

...lazer... ;D ;D ;D

polop · Feb 27, 2008

Re: powerful hand held yellow/red/green pionter

hi there, i'v been thinking about this project and ways to extend it in the future. my first thought was to make a yellow spirograph, then of course the mind wanders and then you want a colour changing spirograph ( slow morphing and one pattern multi-colour high speed) but beening no electronic genius that circuit would be a bastard. but then i thought about the poloristion of the beam (red green, horizontal vertical) a slowly rotating polorising filter would start to block out red while increasing green until the beem is 100% grean and then the invers happens untill it is 100% red, and inbetween it will be varying degrees of yellow.. for miore explination see below. this design being completely modular could be as simple as a double laser ; yellow laser ; red-green fader beam ; variable colour spirograph ; automatic varying colour spirograph etc etc ......
what do you guys think about this improvement

darklandz · Feb 27, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

is this the first time on here someone is trying to make their own yellow pointer?
id b very interested to see the final product.

dar303 · Feb 27, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

If you want to achieve a fading the simplest way will be to simply vary the individual powers of the lasers. A very good way to do this is using the d4drive ( http://www.die4laser.com/dvd-rec/Die4Drive.htm ), a driver that has analogue powercontrol using 0-5V. Then build two function generators with sine or triangle wave outputs and modulate use them to modulate the powercontrol inputs. Or program a microcontroller to do it.
Google for LFO (low frequency oscillator) for some tips.

polop · Feb 27, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

the reason that i am going to use a filter instead of electronics is that the electronics in the design are simple (i have little experience as of yet) both methods in theory will work equaly well but an ebay filter is only 4£ so this method is cheaper. Also with electronics getting the lasers sinchronised would be difficult but due to the nature of polorisation that will do that for me. plus also doing somthing a little origional is never a bad way to go.

with beam diamiter if this is a problem i can just carfully re focus the red to the green for each distance to the projection wall (each time i move it) to get them presisly the same size. the one thing that i worry about is the alignment of the beams to get a yellow instead of a red and green next to each other - i do not have precise tools :-[
thanks for all the suggestions, keep em' coming

goldfingerfif · Feb 27, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

It is very easy to do fading with a Micro Controller (Basic Stamp 2 should be fine) capable of PWM (pulse width modulation), Capacitor, transistor, potentiometer and analog to digital converter.

polop · Feb 27, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

next year i am starting an electronics A level at colage and untill now i am only self taught. once i am on my way on that i have a (more or less) free suply of components ect and at the moment i have no basic staps or programing equipment or knowlage of how to program. and when there is an interesting alternitive that i havnt seen before i think it will be nice to give that ago. plus any one with no electronic knowlage can learn from this project and expand, to go hard core electronics strait away seems a waste to me. (no disrespect to these suggestions - i love em in fact its just praticality lol). next year i might revisit a similar project and do it properlyt with electroninics - because obviosly there would be a significant in crease in yelow powere if half of both of the lasers wasnt wasted by the polorising filter (eg. when it is at 45deg) but that will have to do for now.

clwatkins10 · Feb 28, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

wow, looks cool, keep us posted!

BlueFusion · Feb 28, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

Looks cool... but I anticipate you will come into a LOT of problems along the way. Can't wait to see how it goes. And by the way... 50mw to 200mw is gonna give you a very reddy orange... 50mw to 110mw might be more appropriate.

polop · Feb 28, 2008

Re: hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spir

mmm im confused earlier in the thread someone said 20green and 200 red would give the best yellow. i origionaly thoought it to be 50 to 200 now it is 50 to 110 (90ihs to 200ish) confusing ill open a thread in the laser show section and ask

hand held yellow/red/green pionter/ spirograph

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