Hello there!

In this thread i will post my current Project, a cheapest-of-the-cheap XY scanner!

I used:

2 Harddisks
Audio Amplifier
laser pen
rubber bands ^^
PC for generating frequencies

is a experimental setup, and excuse my messy room, i'm a messy person ^^

As mirrors i simply hacksawed the disk in the HDD and glued it to the arm.
as those arms have no center fixing, i fixed them with rubber bands in a "0" Position

i hooked the coils up to an audio amp, and generated simple waveforms with goldwave

im still looking for free software, that can use a "sooundcard dac" for simple patterns

here's a picture of the basic setup

and one night shot cause its cool

thats a square i projected at estimated 8K (PPS) as i dont have working software for now

very very nice work ! I've never thought of this before , I have some freeware that generates sound signals if you want to try that ?

i'd love to see how good this is with laserboy and a soundcard DAC ;D

you can just simply hook this setup to an ordinary audio source,

but i didn't find the right kind of music jet, because it needs some difference in the left/right channel. if there isnt much stereo, you'll mostly get circles.

see this: http://ussr.at/laser/DSCN0448.MOV (43 mb!)

if anyone could reccomend me some free easy software i could use, i would be very happy

i will keep you all up to date in this thread

i'll try everything ^^ link?

http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Audio-...r/SineGen.html

it has stereo control, square, triangle and sine wave at >20KHz.

-Adam

looking nice just a small note u should make your mirrors a lot smaller
this wil increase the scanning speed a lot

that is true, but smaller mirrors require more precise alignment. as for now the harddissk are just lying around, this is not an easy task. i will also shorten the arms for less interia.

could anyone point me to software i could use? i tried spaghetti but i only get ouput in the settings, with the test patterns. if i try to run some file/show, there is no output. is there a manual?


laserboy i dont get at all

thx for the generator, i got some nice spiropatterns out of this. but i need more ^^

that is true, but smaller mirrors require more precise alignment. as for now the harddissk are just lying around, this is not an easy task. i will also shorten the arms for less interia.

could anyone point me to software i could use? i tried spaghetti but i only get ouput in the settings, with the test patterns. if i try to run some file/show, there is no output. is there a manual?


laserboy i dont get at all

thx for the generator, i got some nice spiropatterns out of this. but i need more ^^[/quote]

yeah the generator is quite good for spiro type patterns

laserboy, I don't even know if the creator of that quite understands it yet ;D

-Adam

nice work i made one of those one night and smoke'd it. epic fail . you got to be careful of the volume here's the vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPX111b-G-g

thanks for the advice, for now i'm powering them at 0.5W max.

the problem is, the arms dont return to zero fast/precise enough. i guess rubberbands just dont cut it

how do real galvos work this?

has someone built somethin like i did here?
im thinking of giving each coil a DC offset, maybe 2V, an modulate from 1V to 3V with 2 being the zero point. anyone think that will work ?!

i also made one with some simple 555 timer circuit's here's the test vid it work's ok i still have not finish'd it yet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyxWUwxxX0w

hey dtmf, how did fix the arms? rubberbands too? or springs?

i use'd some small spring's . i had the same problem too . the 555 timer help'd alot

here's a speed test vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQNrW_ruSaE

so what did you do with the 555? some kind of pwm?

I think this is how real galvos work, as they always spring back to the middle. The amount of movement from them is tiny though, it's more like rotational vibrations.


-Adam

hi @all

i build a similar scanner myself just yesterday

i started the project a while ago, but got bored when it was to align the mirrors. a few days ago i put a nice order an dx for some led-projects, and threw a few lasers in. then i got excited, went to conrad (german radioshack-like shop) and bought a 5mw pointer to start building some effects (couldn't wait for the "real" lasers, and also i don't want to burn my eyes testing something, so i test with the small one and use the big one for the real show). so yesterday i began with a simple liquid sky on a pc fan, but it sucks with the <5mw red pointer. then is started to rip the two harddisks apart, but i gave up when i noticed that it is way too hard to cut harddisk-cases with a manual small saw. after discovering that i was out of hotglue i started cleaning up, only to find two sticks of hotglue under my closet

30 mins later the scanner was done, and it ended in a pretty simple and straightforward design i think. i will post pictures and videos later this evening, when i have made some good ones...

in the mean time can someone explain how the speed test works? all i see is more or less of a line going from left to right, what can you tell from this and can you tell it by looking at the (no offense) crappy videos?

and also wummy, what song or sound did you use in the video? i didn't hear anything, but actually i don't trust ubuntu with .mov...

there is only faint sound coming from the harddisks, and its a random DnB internet radio channel.

also, german greeting from vienna

so now i added steel springs to fix stuff even more, and finally managed to gain some control!!

i present you "L P F"
http://ussr.at/laser/DSCN0469.MOV (8mb)

now i manage about 1K (pps)

next step is to reduce mirror size and cut the arms to lessen interia

i also found this software: http://patrick.kolla.de/index.heathcliff.html

to be very useful. it converts shapes to stereo soundfiles

ah sh*t. i'm too dumb to use this forum, and after youtube "processed" my video there's nothing to see anymore. i will post some pics here.

and i will try this heathcliff tool, sounds promising!

i fixed the heads further with springs... its much more accurate now

here's a quick movie of a few shapes i made with the software

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p8K6ac6nhs

my main problem now is the DC cutoff from the soundcard... i might get a usb one and build a real "soundcard DAC"

any reccomendations on USB soundcards?

@ kendon *it was just a test of how fast the 555 timer would make a line and stop where i want'd it to . this project is kinda hard if you limit your self to just *spare cheap part's .

@wummi the 555 timer/oscillator *can be used in line with your circuit to oscillate the arm's very fast . i find the less volt's i send the arm *the less it slap's back and forth . i have found that diff hdd arm's can take diff voltage . i have 1 that work's great at 9v's *i have no idea why . the reason i used the 555 timer was to make the unit stand alone . kinda like a spiro . when you use cap's of different value's in the timer ciruit * you get different oscillation's * . i used 10 different value's on each timer that you would select with a rotory switch . and 2 pot's on the timer to control the speed of the oscillation the mock up build work'd but i nevr finish'd it *. i built a 4 motor spiro with forword/rev and speed control on all 4 motor's *insted ;D

Just a heads up...

using the 555 in astable mode you could leave a fixed capacitor and change
the value of the timing Resistor instead.... just replace it with a potentiometer (pot) and you will
have infinite adjustment instead of just 10 preselected... as in your circuit..

Jerry

i have replaced the Resistor's with potentiometer's . i also like to use different dischage rate's that,s why i use 10 different capacitor value's. that way i have infinte adjustment of different capacitor value's . it also set up for monostable or astable mode