Laser for Sharp Aquos Board Displays

[imprttuner2]

Good afternoon everyone,

I need advice on a Laser Pointer system, and I am hoping the that someone on the forum can help me.

I am the IT Manager for a County Government.
We recently purchased several 70 and 80 inch Sharp Aquos Board Interactive displays.
(Model Numbers: PN-L703B and PN-L802B).
They are being placed on the far short wall of long meeting rooms.
(Largest room being 25 ft Long by 12 ft Wide, Shortest being 18 ft Long by 10 ft Wide)
The building in question is a newly renovated 1910's building with ceilings too low to work effectively with a projector so displays were the only option.

So far we have tried 2 Logitech Presentation controllers with built in lasers. A green model (R800) and a red model (R400).
Neither system seems to work effectively.

Does anyone have a recommendation for me to try. I'm dealing with (presumably) grown up government officials, in official settings, with the screens mounted slightly higher then normal, so any reflection angles should go toward the ceiling.

Thank you in advance for any assistance y'all can provide.

 

[Gabe]

Hmm, I may get flak for suggesting a laser >5mW for presentation purposes, but I think they can be responsible with it. I'll recommend a laser from Dragon Lasers, pick the 'viper' at 35mW of power. You're probably going to need something greater than 5mW for the spot to be seen on a TV screen, in a bright room, but I don't want to recommend anything too high in power.

 

[WizardG]

If the issue is that the dot from the laser isn't bright enough may I suggest having someone here customize the presentation controllers you already have.

 

[diachi]

Good afternoon everyone,

I need advice on a Laser Pointer system, and I am hoping the that someone on the forum can help me.

I am the IT Manager for a County Government.
We recently purchased several 70 and 80 inch Sharp Aquos Board Interactive displays.
(Model Numbers: PN-L703B and PN-L802B).
They are being placed on the far short wall of long meeting rooms.
(Largest room being 25 ft Long by 12 ft Wide, Shortest being 18 ft Long by 10 ft Wide)
The building in question is a newly renovated 1910's building with ceilings too low to work effectively with a projector so displays were the only option.

So far we have tried 2 Logitech Presentation controllers with built in lasers. A green model (R800) and a red model (R400).
Neither system seems to work effectively.

Does anyone have a recommendation for me to try. I'm dealing with (presumably) grown up government officials, in official settings, with the screens mounted slightly higher then normal, so any reflection angles should go toward the ceiling.

Thank you in advance for any assistance y'all can provide.

Do you know what power the green laser was rated for? If it was only 1mW, you might try finding something that's closer to 5mW. Although, I wouldn't go down the cheap Chinese route. My "5mW" pointer does as much as 90mW and as such isn't at all eye safe.

What about using a wireless mouse? That way you can use the cursor to point to things. Assuming of course that the board can be interfaced with a PC of some sort, be it Mac, Windows or Linux. I'd imagine so, this looks very similar to Smart Boards or Promethean Boards.

Did you consider a short throw projector? I installed a few of those in classrooms (Used with both with Smart Boards and Promethean Boards), really helped with the low ceilings.

I'd be worried about using a more powerful laser, I'm not sure how these displays work but if it's anything like a flat-screen TV then there's a chance that you'll kill some pixels with a higher powered laser - anything over 50mW and I'd start to worry about that. At any rate, you really need to worry about reflections causing eye damage long before you need to worry about damaging the display.

 

[imprttuner2]

First off, Thank You All for your great responses!

Hmm, I may get flak for suggesting a laser >5mW for presentation purposes, but I think they can be responsible with it. I'll recommend a laser from Dragon Lasers, pick the 'viper' at 35mW of power. You're probably going to need something greater than 5mW for the spot to be seen on a TV screen, in a bright room, but I don't want to recommend anything too high in power.

I want to think they're responsible adults. I will have to check out that link.

If the issue is that the dot from the laser isn't bright enough may I suggest having someone here customize the presentation controllers you already have.

I think I would rather buy something of higher quality then modify anything for government purposes. It seems they can be more litigious then the civilian world.

Do you know what power the green laser was rated for? If it was only 1mW, you might try finding something that's closer to 5mW. Although, I wouldn't go down the cheap Chinese route. My "5mW" pointer does as much as 90mW and as such isn't at all eye safe.

What about using a wireless mouse? That way you can use the cursor to point to things. Assuming of course that the board can be interfaced with a PC of some sort, be it Mac, Windows or Linux. I'd imagine so, this looks very similar to Smart Boards or Promethean Boards.

Did you consider a short throw projector? I installed a few of those in classrooms (Used with both with Smart Boards and Promethean Boards), really helped with the low ceilings.

I'd be worried about using a more powerful laser, I'm not sure how these displays work but if it's anything like a flat-screen TV then there's a chance that you'll kill some pixels with a higher powered laser - anything over 50mW and I'd start to worry about that. At any rate, you really need to worry about reflections causing eye damage long before you need to worry about damaging the display.

Depending on the site, the R800 Green Laser from Logitech is rated at either 2 or 3 mW. So probably far to low.

I'm actually a Level 3 Smart Certified Installer for their projection systems. The displays in question here are the LCD TV with a touch shell built around them similar to the SmartBoard Interactive TV's. Last time I was in Calgary for training those were build nearly the same as the Sharp version, but with Samsung internal displays. These are based on the Sharp Aquos Commercial Displays.

The original plan was for a short throw projection system (most likely a SmartBoard IX885 System), but due to some engineering issues and the screen size requirements we had to go with these displays. If we had stuck with the original plan of the 885's the pen tray would have rested about 2 feet from the floor and the display would have been obstructed by the conference tables.

We have installed the screens high, with a slight tilt toward the ceiling to direct any reflections up instead of straight out to minimize the risk of laser reflection as well.