First scanner advice needed, right step into scanners?

^Good stuff, glad to hear it. You've chosen wisely going with laser-wave. You won't be disappointed. IMO I'd go with either a 473nm blue (kinda expensive) or a 445nm diode (quite expensive). Either one of these will be MUCH more visible than a blue-ray and the colors will be WAY more vivid. It will take your breath away.. Very much worth the money.

I realize you may have been playing around with them longer than me, but that's not my point. I have done this before, I have encountered problems, and I am trying to save him from running into the same errors and wasting money. I have spent about $4000 on the last 3 years on laser scanners, and today all I have is a single coloured scanner to show for it. I bought a cheap stepper laser off eBay, it was awesome, but big mistake. I bought the scanpro 20's, the tuning was wayyyyy off, and my Y galvo broke very shortly after receiving it. I bought a CNI cheaply, it died. Gone thru power supplies too, simple things that can save a lot of money.

I am giving him options and things to consider, you say TTL, I say analog, whatever he goes with is entirely down to his budget and what he can find. I recently sold a 500mW blue laser-wave module to someone, and to the eye the linearity was great. Sure, do all the graph tests, but when people go to see your show they aren't going to point out how unlinear your lasers are and if they can see the graphs.

I have posted many links over this forum, infact it was my idea to create this laser show section, just takes a bit of searching. I am sure the OP has done some searching, but I don't have all day to sit on a forum and spoon feed people. I give my opinions, what I think would work best, maybe a link, but people can make their own decisions about who they would want to buy from. I personally don't care about age, I know some people here who are atleast 20 and post like 3 year olds, but afterall it is an online forum, for people to give opinions.

Analog was ultimately the right choice for me, i know i'll be getting red next then blue shortly after that. I want to build this up in stages. It will be RGB when the project is complete. I'm currently looking into DAC's at the min, deciding between a soundcard dac or FB3

^If you've got the budget for the FB3, go with that. Unless you're like me and prefer anything DIY..

things said:

I realize you may have been playing around with them longer than me, but that's not my point. I have done this before, I have encountered problems, and I am trying to save him from running into the same errors and wasting money. I have spent about $4000 on the last 3 years on laser scanners, and today all I have is a single coloured scanner to show for it. I bought a cheap stepper laser off eBay, it was awesome, but big mistake. I bought the scanpro 20's, the tuning was wayyyyy off, and my Y galvo broke very shortly after receiving it. I bought a CNI cheaply, it died. Gone thru power supplies too, simple things that can save a lot of money.

I am giving him options and things to consider, you say TTL, I say analog, whatever he goes with is entirely down to his budget and what he can find. I recently sold a 500mW blue laser-wave module to someone, and to the eye the linearity was great. Sure, do all the graph tests, but when people go to see your show they aren't going to point out how unlinear your lasers are and if they can see the graphs.

I have posted many links over this forum, infact it was my idea to create this laser show section, just takes a bit of searching. I am sure the OP has done some searching, but I don't have all day to sit on a forum and spoon feed people. I give my opinions, what I think would work best, maybe a link, but people can make their own decisions about who they would want to buy from. I personally don't care about age, I know some people here who are atleast 20 and post like 3 year olds, but afterall it is an online forum, for people to give opinions.

Click to expand...

Congratulations. You have my sincere apologies for questioning your supreme 15 year old knowledge.

My point in my last post to you is that we're flip-flopping the OP, which IS NOT helpful in any way. He went ahead and made an intelligent decision without our help at all, which tells me he's pretty smart all on his own.

You say age doesn't matter? But it does. You have practically no life's experience, I have lots. You have no college education, I do. You have limited experience, I have more. All that comes from age.

To be fair, I'm actually quite impressed by the fact that you are 15 and you have the knowledge that you have. Now you just need to work on tact.
As an example, earlier in this thread you posted "Bit mixed up there mate, analog is the way to go, TTL sucks." TTL doesn't "suck". It has it's place, depending on what your needs are. If all you do are single-color beam shows, then TTL will do GREAT since most of the time you don't want any dimming. At the shows I have done, I do strictly beam shows since the view of the stage is not conducive to graphics (I use scrim, but only for projecting artists names and general information). I use TTL in all of my beam scanners except my RGB (which is obviously analog). Also, TTL is MUCH faster. If you have 50k-60k galvos in a single-color system, analog modulation just won't keep up. Stating an opinion as fact is very 15 year old. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about and that's why I'll take the time to write all this.

Also, for the record in the 14 years I've been doing this I've built 12 scanners/projectors, bought some, sold some, scrapped some, and now I have 4 to show for it. I understand that you have posted links elsewhere, but I'm talking about here. In this thread. For this fellow. What you've done in the past is irrelevant in the here and now.

I'll be glad to pit my college education in electronics and computers combined with my experience with lasers against your personal experience building lasers anytime. Just not here in this thread anymore. XysteR, I wish you the best of luck with your build. I'm done posting here, as I have little use for arrogant children. (although I've never met a 15 year old who wasn't the definitive expert in everything)

ElektroFreak said:

(although I've never met a 15 year old who wasn't the definitive expert in everything)

Click to expand...

lmao! My friends son turned 15 a few months ago, thus he was allowed to have his computer and xbox360 in his bedroom. My friend says all of a sudden he thinks he's the all knowing adult of the house! That promptly changed when his son pushed it too far.. My friend yanked his pants down and smacked his arse infront of his girlfriend. Needless to say his son is firmly back on the right track

I'm trying to clue myself up on the differences between a Soundcard DAC and an RB3. I do like making things but i don't have the equipment to do the voltage tuning on the Laserboy correction amp. Do they not come pretuned to 0-5v? Again, i'm not entirely clued up on this yet. The price of this option is attractive though

^Well, i said I wasn't going to post here anymore, but I'll answer your question: The correction amp does not come pre-tuned. You have to build the amp from a kit (contains the board and all parts) and tune it yourself. It's not very hard. You just need the galvo channels to swing +-5V and the modulation channels to go from 0-5V.

It's best done with an oscilloscope, but it can be done with a multimeter while the system is powered up and running. If you don't have the necessary equipment, there are folks here that do. You can PM me if you want once you've got the correction amp built and I'll hook it up and tune it for you for the cost of shipping. There may also be someone closer to you. If you haven't already, check out photonlexicon.com. There is TONS of info there on this very thing if you search. If you were to put a request out, I'm sure someone in the UK would be able to help you out.

Oh, and I do have a scope..

I'd recommend getting it tuned by someone with an oscilloscope. Voltages are not super critical for the galvo amps, but for the laser modulation signals voltage levels can be a problem. Some analog laser drivers (like the flexmod) do not stop increasing current beyond 5v, so if your amp is not tuned properly and you run an analog laser you could burn out the diode.

if you use the max.wav file I posted in the "First scanner" thread here, you can tune the sound card with a DMM.

Elektro, if you can't stand arrogant children, then LPF obviously isn't the place to be, considering atleast 50% of it's members are <20. Like I said, I don't care about age. I have done it before, and I have found errors and problems, and I have just as many rights to express my opinion as you. I said TTL sucks, yes, but who cares? You use it, you don't have to get all upset because someone says so. That's my opinion, and I feel analog is a huge step up from TTL even in a single colour setup. People who get all emotional over an online forum worry me, but whatever, I am also done arguing this.

The difference between the FB3 and the soundcard DAC is, well, the price, and also the FB3 comes ready to go. only thing to DIY if anything is an enclosure.

The quality is also higher, as it was designed to be a laser show DAC, a sound card isn't. The software is top notch, no crashes at all.

Sorry about your thread XysteR, but I will still be here to help if needed.

Tuning the SDC is as easy as this:

Connect it to your computer, make sure it's properly installed and set on 6 or 8 channels in it's config, and also your default sound device.

Don't use the card, but connect your DMM/o'scope to output 1 and a G on the correction amp. Adjust the offset pot untill it's at 0V, then move onto channel 2 and do the same thing (You can just use the same ground each time).

Then go back to channel 1, and play this file http://files.getdropbox.com/u/203420/max.zip in any media player AS LONG is it supports multi-channel output (most do).

Adjust the gain pot on channel 1 untill it drops to 5V, then do channel 2 etc.

Then your done, maybe put a little blob of glue on the pots so they don't move accidentally.

EDIT: If your worried about blowing the diode, underpower the diode by a few milliamps or adjust the DAC to output like 4.8V max, which should still give you pretty much full output.

Grrrr i'm so miffed! Mr Royal mail likes to tap the front door with a feather and quietly push a prewritten 'You were not in' card through the door! I need to invest in a dog! I deliberately had the tv/radio etc off so i could hear anyone knocking. Can't believe this, Rob send them special delivery so they'd get here today. Arsebiscuits! Thats my weekend null & void lol. I'm gonna tell them to give extra 'door knocking' training when i collect on Monday The really annoying thing is, i'll hardly have time to even open the parcel on monday. GRRRRRRRR! Sorry i just had to release lol

I hate that.

Last week I got 2 letters saying I wasn't home to pick it up, but what was even more annoying is they had "final notice" ticked, when I haven't had ANY delivery requests beforehand

Well i got my DT-25's and Green laser from Rob at Laser-wave today i'm still trying to decide what to do about the DAC: FB3 or Soundcard DAC, soundcard DAC is very tempting.

Can't leave a question unanswered, so I'll have to post here..

To me, if you've got the budget for an FB3, then it all boils down to whether or not you enjoy DIY.

The FB3 will deliver a superior show to any other DAC except a higher-end Pangolin product, so that a definite selling point for an FB3. But like I said before you get a nice warm fuzzy feeling from DIY.. and the performance ain't half bad, really.

ElektroFreak said:

Can't leave a question unanswered, so I'll have to post here..

To me, if you've got the budget for an FB3, then it all boils down to whether or not you enjoy DIY.

The FB3 will deliver a superior show to any other DAC except a higher-end Pangolin product, so that a definite selling point for an FB3. But like I said before you get a nice warm fuzzy feeling from DIY.. and the performance ain't half bad, really.

Click to expand...

To make matters worse i'm finding other DAC's like EasyLase USB etc.. Grrr

I've found that what makes a show is largely dependent on the quality of the show data. Recently I got some shows from someone that were done up with Pangolin software, and they really do bring Spaghetti to a new level. The frames are incredibly smooth and the points are optimized. There is relatively little flicker on my camera that normally cuts out chunks when recording shows done at 20kpps.

It's just amazing how big of a difference it makes when there's no change to the hardware or software at all. Just how well the show data was made.

^Agreed. I think it's just frame optimization that makes the real difference.. Are you using monochrome or white-light, and what type of scanners?

@XysteR: I must still say that if you are considering spending large money on any other non-DIY system than Pangolin, don't. Pangolin is the definitive ILDA show software and is second to none.