Review: Reke 500RGB (laserius projectorus-cheapus)

Re: Reke 500RGB

LtKernelPanic said:

Hmm. I have one of those folding carts like you use for luggage I could take with me. I'll have to go dig it out. I don't think I can wait for EOD to get it.

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You should be fine with a little cart... The box is only slightly bigger than the dimensions of the unit (give like 2" leeway) or you could cut the box open and take out the projector and just take that home... It wouldn't be out of the question to carry it a mile.

Re: Reke 500RGB

danefex said:

I just ordered one of these today, couldn't wait any longer after seeing LED's information alongside the OP $316 was my total & I hope it makes it here as quickly as it did for you guys. Thanks again for posting the pics & vids of how this thing looks :beer:

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Congrats!
I am sure you will love it.
I expect it will make it there within a week and a half worst case.
I expect a personal account from you when you get it

Re: Reke 500RGB

Jeez Guy. You sell many more of these you are going to have to ask for a commision or something !
This thing looks pretty good but the galvo speed is a bit low. I wonder about that processor chip with the hand written labels on it. Is it a hardware limitation or a software limitation that keeps the galvos slow ?
-I'm trying to think of it from the manufacturer's point of view. Why would they find it necessary to have a batch of chips identified with hand written labels for this product ? This would imply that the same chip is being used for another product but with other galvos which would mean at other defined parameters. Probably faster as I can't think of anything that would be sold that was slower. So the same processor should be able to handle a faster speed of hardware . Would it require completely different programming to work ? Hmmmmm. Perhaps some sort of feedback from the galvos is the only limiting factor. How would that feedback be created with low end galvos ?

I'm still new to this stuff and I can't remember most of my electronics training so these questions can only be answered by those much more familiar with the detailed knowledge of these types of systems. Anyone interested ?
:thinking:

Re: Reke 500RGB

Guyfromhe said:

Congrats!
I am sure you will love it.
I expect it will make it there within a week and a half worst case.
I expect a personal account from you when you get it

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Thanks, I am happy to share my personal account with it. I'd be quite surprised though if I got it within 2 weeks, I've never gotten anything from china before that quickly :beer:

Re: Reke 500RGB

ShortyInCanada said:

Jeez Guy. You sell many more of these you are going to have to ask for a commision or something !

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I already said that, I should poke the DinoDirect guy to this thread.

ShortyInCanada said:

This thing looks pretty good but the galvo speed is a bit low. I wonder about that processor chip with the hand written labels on it. Is it a hardware limitation or a software limitation that keeps the galvos slow ? ....

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They are a laser projection manufacturer they build all different kinds and spec of projector. The chip is a generic microprocessor chip which can be programmed to do anything. They probably use them in all of their models.
Since they have zillions of identical looking chips with different programming that could easily get mixed up they label them (and it's probably cheaper to pay a Chinese baby a cent a day to make hand labels than to buy a printer for it). I think the processor is probably programmed with patterns that are ideal for the galvos they are connected to and so it doesn't try to drive them faster than they can go. It's also labeled as 7C which I assume means 7 colors, again probably for the patterns/animations.
I don't think ILDA runs through that microcontroller, I think it talks directly to the galvos and lasers (because it overrides all the settings that connect to that processor board) so I will have to see once I have my DAC.
I think the galvo speed has more to do with how many and how tightly the coils are wound... Going on what China usually does is they list something far higher specs than it can actually do and then push it to it's absolute limit and still not meet those specs (look at laser pointers) so I don't think they would software limit a unit the way the Americans often do.

I can't say for sure but I think if you stuck a higher speed chip in there it would just work poorly, just like if you stuck something meant to drive analog lasers if the laser driver boards weren't meant to accept analog.

Re: Reke 500RGB

danefex said:

Thanks, I am happy to share my personal account with it. I'd be quite surprised though if I got it within 2 weeks, I've never gotten anything from china before that quickly :beer:

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Well then I expect you will be pleasantly surprised. Which shipping method did you use?

Re: Reke 500RGB

Guyfromhe said:

Which shipping method did you use?

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DHL, but I guess I'll know for sure when they email the shipping info :beer:

Re: Reke 500RGB

danefex said:

DHL, but I guess I'll know for sure when they email the shipping info :beer:

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If they actually send it DHL you will have it in probably a week.

Re: Reke 500RGB

Well Operation "Get off your ass and walk to the PO for exercise" failed miserably. I walked out the door and noticed the sky was turning black. A quick check of local radar showed a nasty storm about 10 miles out. Of course that storm split and went around the city so I could have made it up and back before the rain actually hit. Oh well I got a lift up there and have my PJ. Now it's time to unbox it and have some fun! I'll report back later tonight or tomorrow.

Re: Reke 500RGB

Sweet! good to hear you got it..

I got my DAC today but it seems to have failed miserably...
I don't know if the problem is me or the DAC but either way it's not working...
Hopefully Adam will get back to me soon about whats wrong with it and I can have it fixed...

Re: Reke 500RGB

Bummer on your DAC. I hope you get it working soon. I'm thinking of ordering one soon but need to decide on what software first to make sure it's compatible with the DAC.

I can confirm pretty much everything in your review. The biggest problem is boy does that mic suck! Could you possibly explain how you added that aux in?

Oh well he's a semi-crappy video of a beam show from my PJ. I had to put the camera off to the side of the "cone" of the beam since I was only about 6' from the aperture and didn't want to damage the sensor. Hopefully once I get my work room cleaned out this weekend I can get better video from a distance.

Re: Reke 500RGB

LtKernelPanic said:

Bummer on your DAC. I hope you get it working soon. I'm thinking of ordering one soon but need to decide on what software first to make sure it's compatible with the DAC.

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Yea I am pretty bummed about my DAC... I spent all day troubleshooting it and as far as I can tell it's not actually amping / outputting anything.. I hope Adam will give me some insight in the next couple days and if it's bad I guess I will be waiting another week before I can actually take this bad boy for a test drive.

I spent a while researching them... Your options are fairly limited... The sound card is probably the best bang for your buck.. I think basically any free / cheap software will work with it and most other options are 2-5 times as much and unless your looking to get into QS3 than it doesn't matter much. There are a couple other options at the same price range I have heard iShow is total crap... Just keep in mind the scanner speed when your getting a DAC don't disappoint yourself.

LtKernelPanic said:

I can confirm pretty much everything in your review. The biggest problem is boy does that mic suck! Could you possibly explain how you added that aux in?

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Heh glad to hear my opinion on this unit is shared by you guys
The mic is _diabolical_ I don't understand how they could possibly make it so awful.. They have a sensitivity knob where 0-99% means off basically and 100% means pick up whats basically touching the mic. Whoever designed that should be sacked...
Aux Mod:


Anyway the AUX mod is pretty simple...

You need - to do a proper job:
- A Phillips screw driver
- 4 pieces of wire (a piece of cat 5 works well)
- Soldering iron & Solder
- Heat shrink tube & lighter (or electric tape)
- 3-Conductor Phone Jack 3.5mm / 1/8" from Radio Shack ($5) (2740246A)
- Drill and 1/4" Metal bit.
- Side cutters
- Small zip ties or twist ties
- Wire cutters / Strippers

Take off the 4 corner screws on the front plate of the unit and the middle bottom screw. Remove the four screws at the top of the unit.

The front of the unit should come completely off. Put it somewhere safe where it won't get dirty.

Loosen the top and bottom corner screw at the back of the unit closest to the fan. Pull that side of the case outwards a bit and then wiggle and slide the whole top piece towards the front of the unit (it sticks a bit just work it out).

You now have full access to the internals of the projector. Don't break anything!

You will see a ribbon cable going up from the dip switches this bundle of cable has the wires you need in it. Snip the first few zip ties to get slack on the wires - The right tool helps here you don't want to cut any of the wires!

Trace the mic cables from the mic itself it to where it's actually accessible (the back of the unit is quite tight). There is not a whole lot of slack in the cable so you will need to be able to work with short cables. Cut and strip the two wires where you will have access to both ends of it (If you want to dump the mic completely you will have lots of cable to work with. I wired mine so the mic works if there is nothing plugged into the AUX jack)

Slide on some heat shrink tube and solder Pins 1 and 5 (see the diagram below) to the wires going into the control circuitry.
If you are keeping the mic slide on some tubing and solder pins 2 and 4 to the wires that run to the mic.

Slide the tubing so it covers your joints and then warm it with a lighter unit it it is snug.

Find an accessible spot on the back that doesn't have anything important on it. I chose the spot right next to the power switch (look at my jack picture a few posts back for my location you can put yours anywhere you like) Make sure you don't drill through any wires.

I had my bit slip on my and take off some paint.. I think you might be able to avoid this by putting electric or masking tape over the area you are going to drill at and then drilling through that. Make your hole and watch out for metal turnings (You should wear safety glasses when your eyes are this close to a drill spewing metal shavings - they are sharp and some will go inside the projector) Turn it over and give it a gentle shake to get the metal out.

Now all you have to do is put the jack through the hole and then screw the collar on.

Zip tie the connections like they were before with your wires now and you now have an AUX in.

LtKernelPanic said:

Oh well he's a semi-crappy video of a beam show from my PJ. I had to put the camera off to the side of the "cone" of the beam since I was only about 6' from the aperture and didn't want to damage the sensor. Hopefully once I get my work room cleaned out this weekend I can get better video from a distance.

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I just didn't have my tripod handy when I did my beam shots... Good show though!

Re: Reke 500RGB

Identical galvos & chip & driver as the 200mW 445nm Star Party Auto Sound DMX512 ILDA PC Single Blue Stage Laser Projector Reke-91B - DinoDirect.com

I however received a version w/o ILDA port. :'( Big complaints on DD for that one!

Did you try tweaking the AMP regulators? Or anything else?

Re: Reke 500RGB

mhakali said:

Identical galvos & chip & driver as the 200mW 445nm Star Party Auto Sound DMX512 ILDA PC Single Blue Stage Laser Projector Reke-91B - DinoDirect.com

I however received a version w/o ILDA port. :'( Big complaints on DD for that one!

Did you try tweaking the AMP regulators? Or anything else?

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I almost got that one but I decided the price was right for the rgb one. Sucks about the ILDA port..
I don't Know why that would happen... Did you talk to customer service yet?

Re: Reke 500RGB

Guyfromhe said:

I almost got that one but I decided the price was right for the rgb one. Sucks about the ILDA port..
I don't Know why that would happen... Did you talk to customer service yet?

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Yeah. Rain of complaints raining down on them right now. We will see how they solve it.

I paid $70 inkl S&H for it, so quite satisfied otherwise. But no fun w/o ILDA port.

Re: Reke 500RGB

Wow you got it for 70 bucks shipped? That's nuts... How did you pull that off?
It doesn't seem like it would be as exciting with only on color tho.