30kpps scanner and DAC demonstrating Winamp oscilloscope

Hello folks!

I've been building my first scanner now and I'm just waiting for DX 200mW green module to arrive so I can intergrate it in my scanner instead of LPC-815 diode that I'm currently testing with.

The DAC isn't totally finished yet since I haven't recevied the correction amp yet, but I just couldn't wait any longer and had to test it out. So DAC is actually only USB soundcard without any extra amplification!

Oh, and the galvos and drivers are SpaceLas PT-30K.


Here comes some pics and a youtube clip w/ description:


Looking inside scanner, if you look on the wall you can see reflections from protection glass infront of scanner galvos. The big black lump ontop of X amplifier is actually a quick and dirty TTL driver for the laser (basically it just takes signal from DAC and eighter current is on or it is off).
Laser driver is rckstr with output capacitor removed for faster responce.



Reflections from protectionglass



What scanner looks like with cover on.



Showing oscilloscope driven by LFI player abstract generator and Winamp!

That looks pretty cool!

How exactly do you get the scope output using winamp and lfi? I'd like to try myself and have both, but no idea on how to interface those programs.

Benm said:

That looks pretty cool!

How exactly do you get the scope output using winamp and lfi? I'd like to try myself and have both, but no idea on how to interface those programs.

Click to expand...

Thanks!
It's really fun to play around with all kinds of setting, esp. since this is my first scanner build!

NOTE: This will only work if you're running with soundcard DAC!

I've attached the LFI Player abstract file in View attachment osc.zip
You might need to tweak LFI Player points per second so it won't run too fast for displaying sound oscilloscope (i.e. you would only see horisontal lines)

Then it's just a matter of pulling volume balance control in Winamp so sound will only be output to Y on scanner.

It would be nice with a plugin to winamp to do all this stuff, unfortunately my C++ has gotten a little bit rusty...

And it kinda sucks to have only mono sound aswell.

Go over to Photon Lexicon, join, get access to the FTP, and download Zoofscope!

Saves a few frustrating nights coding.

Steve

LSRFAQ said:

Go over to Photon Lexicon, join, get access to the FTP, and download Zoofscope!

Saves a few frustrating nights coding.

Steve

Click to expand...

Thanks alot for the tip!

Sounds like good fun - will try it soon.

Displaying an audio scope doesnt seem that much of a breakthrough, but it can be a visually impressive effect none the less

Benm said:

Sounds like good fun - will try it soon.

Displaying an audio scope doesnt seem that much of a breakthrough, but it can be a visually impressive effect none the less

Click to expand...

Um, more things are available then the scope, real time FFT too.

Steve

I think I'm going to read through some Winamp AVS plugin examples and then I might contruct my own AVS plugin using EzAudDac. Who knows, I might even post it here if it ever gets finished..

Hum zoofscope, lasertennis, laseroids, lfiplayer... I would not give up on existing freeware just yet.

Steve

Problem with those programs is that it doesn't do exactly as I want; having spectrum analyzer and scope in winamp (and who know, maybe more effects?) just a click away on my soundcard DAC with EzAudDAC.
It's funny that I can't find anybody else that has done that one before me...

Could you describe exactly how to replicate the effect in the video?

Preferably as a guide for total idiots, since i seem to be missing something simple but essential in replicating the result

Benm said:

Could you describe exactly how to replicate the effect in the video?

Preferably as a guide for total idiots, since i seem to be missing something simple but essential in replicating the result

Click to expand...

Okay, so hook up the DAC and scanner so you have it working properly in LFI player, be sure to not have anything running in LFI player before loading osc.ABS (attached in osc.zip)

I attached a picture with where to find all the buttons here (you don't really need to mess around with setting in abstract control panel since I already did that in osc.ABS):


Go ahead and press play now in LFI player, Your X galvo should now start to oscillate at a low frequency (you can set the speed of X galvo simply by decreasing/increasing points per second in Options->Preferences->Display Timer). Now you're ready for next step! Fire winamp up but don't start any music yet.
Put the balance ruler all the way to right channel (Y galvo!) as shown in the attached picture:

Now just start the music and you should have a pretty scope running!

Ah.. so you are running winamp and lfi independent of eachother, either piece of software effectively controlling one of the galvo's. That seems simple enough - i expected something fancy that took the winamp graphics engine and somehow pipe that through LFI.

One thing that i don't quite get: since there is no connection between the programs, how do you get the synchronisation of the start of the X-sweep to the Y-output? Or is it just randomly sweeping the X position regardless of the audio?

Benm said:

Ah.. so you are running winamp and lfi independent of eachother, either piece of software effectively controlling one of the galvo's. That seems simple enough - i expected something fancy that took the winamp graphics engine and somehow pipe that through LFI.

One thing that i don't quite get: since there is no connection between the programs, how do you get the synchronisation of the start of the X-sweep to the Y-output? Or is it just randomly sweeping the X position regardless of the audio?

Click to expand...

The scope doesn't have any trigger at all, it just sweeps what is fed to the galvo amp. But it looks neat anyway.

Triggering is one thing that could be fixed with winamp plugin but appearantly I cannot get any c++ compiler to work on this windows vista, so I cannot even try out winamp SDK examples..

Right... well, it still looks good in your video without triggering. I'll give it a go when i have my projector hooked up