Laser Harp kits - Batch 2 - Finished

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Will do, I should have all the parts I need to make it. Still want to get a better housing and have to figure out where the sensors will go. I guess it will have to be a two part unit, one for the laser/galvo's/drives and one for the sensor? Or perhaps the galvo's have to be set with the sensors and the laser directed at it.

I'v watched the video's that Thing has up but it's a bit hard to see the actual layout in action.

Believe me though, when I do get it up and running there will be pics and perhaps some video!!:beer::beer:

Edit: Add some photo's of my laser harp parts.

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Second Edit:

Laser harp instructions delivered via Email!!
Thanks!! now if I can just get a day off.

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Glad to see it all arrived in good condition!

Yes, the sensor needs to be seperate to the rest of it, thus the 2 extra connectors and plugs I've included. I've given some suggestions about mounting the sensors in the manual

Please do post media! We may do another run of maybe 15 units this time, so any extra media we can get spread around would be great

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Things said:

Glad to see it all arrived in good condition!

Yes, the sensor needs to be seperate to the rest of it, thus the 2 extra connectors and plugs I've included. I've given some suggestions about mounting the sensors in the manual

Please do post media! We may do another run of maybe 15 units this time, so any extra media we can get spread around would be great

Cheers,
Dan

Click to expand...

Thanks Dan.
Is there anyway that you could post pictures of your completed build...both parts, just so I can get an idea in my mind.
Do you put the galvo's and the sensor build together?
I will for sure post pics when I get it up and running, can't wait to combine two of my passions...Music and Lasers!:beer:

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!







The little sensor box sits infront of you, the idea is you reflect the light from the beams off the bottom of your hand, down into that box.

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Okay that's a good start, all I needed was something to prime the bump. I'll have to mull through my design for a few day's and put together some kind of housings for the two modules.
Thank you very much for all your energy on this offer, hopefully my laser harp will be as impressive as yours.

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Alrighty then, I got my Harp mostly together from what I can tell.
Unfortunately I can't get it to turn on for some reason. First off my rails for the galvo's says 12V, I hope this isn't a problem. I have double and triple checked to make sure I have the power wiring correct and i'm pretty sure I do. I think my switches are soldered correctly as well.....I think.....but that shouldn't keep the LCD from coming on at power up though I would think.

I'll put up some pictures and see what anyone has to say. It's a jumble of wires but everything "should" be plugged in correctly, although it sure seems they aren't somehow:thinking:

Any input helps...thanks....
Here are the switches....I put something there to block and allow one to see it a bit better. Yellow is #1 and #2, Red(two of them)is + with the 10k resistors on each, and the two black are together going to the - lead on the harp.
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The image for putting together the switches(momentary)
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Some pictures of the board, galvo, PSU and laser.
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The sensor box with cable to main unit.
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And the whole unit, kind of what it will look like all closed up and WORKING at some point....geez I hope I can get this up and running...still above my head.

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Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Wow, nice work on the enclosure!

I've noticed oyu have found the updated switch diagram, good, that was the first thing I was going to point out.

Your +/-12V galvo rails should be more than enough to power it.

What DOES (Or doesn't) it do exactly? No signs of power at all? LCD comes on, but doesn't do anything? Buttons simply don't work?

EDIT: Could you get me a pic of the front of your galvo PSU (Where the wires screw in). Usually there is a label there, that way I can just eliminate the option of having the power wired incorrectly.

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Things said:

Wow, nice work on the enclosure!

I've noticed oyu have found the updated switch diagram, good, that was the first thing I was going to point out.

Your +/-12V galvo rails should be more than enough to power it.

What DOES (Or doesn't) it do exactly? No signs of power at all? LCD comes on, but doesn't do anything? Buttons simply don't work?

EDIT: Could you get me a pic of the front of your galvo PSU (Where the wires screw in). Usually there is a label there, that way I can just eliminate the option of having the power wired incorrectly.

Cheers,
Dan

Click to expand...

Welp, I'm 'pretty sure' that I have it wired correctly. As far as the harp, there doesn't seem to be any power getting to it. No LCD or LED's. I had both the laser and galvo's wired through a plug and switch on the back and it seemed to be getting power through the switch because the laser was working, but just no galvo's and harp.
Here is a photo of the back of the PSU...you can also see I have the harp pwr wires hooked up there on the left, kind of see the colors.
Thanks for your help
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Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Hurm, I don't see anything blatantly wrong in the pictures you posted. Do you have a volt meter or something you could confirm you are getting power to the power input? Could be something as simple as bad contact to the wires on your power supply.

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

MMM....well i just plugged in the galvo's psu and at the power input it's showing 1.5V...:thinking:
Doesn't seem correct. Also, I had the galvo's hooked up before and they worked fine with the onboard show, but now I get nothing. Also yesterday I was trying to figure out what was going on and was using my multimeter and somehow blew a circuit breaker in the house.
This may have cooked my little PSU, but i'm not sure. It wasn't working before the incident anyways.
I should also mention, I think its correct but....I am using a 3 prong computer cable, the colors are brown, blue, and green/yellow. I have the black wire going off the PSU to the brown on the cable, and the green wire off the PSU to the green/yellow on the cable. I did not attach the white wire from the PSU to the blue wire on the cable. From what I understand it is the neutral and not necessary?
:thanks:

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

If you mean the white (neutral - N) wire on your PSU isn't attached to anything, then that's probably the reason nothing is working. The voltage differential is between live and neutral. If you only connect live and ground, you're only getting 1/2 of the AC cycle, and in relation to ground. Try connecting the white wire to neutral and see what you get.

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Things said:

If you mean the white (neutral - N) wire on your PSU isn't attached to anything, then that's probably the reason nothing is working. The voltage differential is between live and neutral. If you only connect live and ground, you're only getting 1/2 of the AC cycle, and in relation to ground. Try connecting the white wire to neutral and see what you get.

Cheers,
Dan

Click to expand...

Can do Dan, thanks again for your help....I'v been keeping up with the discussion on PL and my problems are far behind those of others, I was hesitant to post but would very much like to get a working harp :beer:

I'll get it all wired up again and see what happens.

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Just make sure you connect all your mains wires correctly (including the neutral) and you should be good.

I'm not 100% on US wiring standards. It's my understanding that live is Black, Neutral is White, and Ground is green/yellow.

Without connecting the neutral wire, it's like connecting only 1 lead to a laser diode

The current is meant to flow through Live and neutral, and nothing to ground at all. Ground is only there as a safety feature (And should always be there), not to provide a complete circuit for the power. Infact, if any power tries to go through ground, you will trip the GFCI on your house (Which it sounds like you already have).

The GFCI is there so if you happen to touch the live or neutral wires (while touching something grounded), it'll detect that power is flowing through ground, and shut off the circuit before you kill yourself.

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Okay Dan you were right on the power setup....I wired all three up and now 'something' is happening. I do seem to be getting power to the harp now, but what is happening is...the LCD is flashing about every 1 second and seems also to be triggering the galvo. The LCD falshes with no readout and the galvo 'clicks'.
MMMMM well i'm on the way at least, now the power is getting to the harp Tell me what you think of the effect that i'm having...i'll keep looking around, my ILDA may not be hooked up correctly, or also i'm not sure about the switches, perhaps you could look at that picture again.


I just might have a working harp sometime soon.................................................
Edit:....a strange thing as well....seems that when I turn off the unit, the laser comes on, and when I turn on the unit, the lasers turns off and then the click and flash of the LCD and galvo's begins??????????????????/

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

Hmmm, it sounds as if your power supply is cutting out. It's a bit hard to tell from my computer what exactly is going on. Could you possibly get some video? Does the galvo PSU have an LED in it? Does it blink too?

From what you described, it sounds as if the power supply is in overload protection mode.

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Laser Harp kits - NOW PRE-ORDERING!

WOOOTT!!!

Okay then, I was thinking perhaps it was my power plug/switch that I have installed. I went back to what I knew worked before which was two different plugs to my power strip. So now I have the laser plus its PSU on one plug and the galvo's on another.
started right up and the LCD said ready!:beer:

I need to take a short break....i'v been going over this thing all morning....
When I come back to it and try to get it a bit more assembled i'll really try to get it up and running and then provide some nice pictures.

Thanks again for all the help Dan, that's really standing next to your product!:thanks::gj:

EDIT:
Okay then I turned it on with the laser TTL plugged into the harp and it doesn't seem to want to turn the laser on....I may have the wires switched around and i'll try that.
Next up it seems that the buttons are working okay. The screen comes up as "ready" and then it goes to "run" with one of the buttons and the other seems to turn blanking on and off....hope this is all correct.
There is an issue with how wide the fan is and also it's not just fine points but a line through them as well....see photo.
At last i'll have to figure out how to get my trail version of Live 8 to reconize the harp and make sounds:yabbem:

Edit2:.......I cleaned up the line across the dots, turns out I had the TTL wires backwards. Also the lasers turns on and off with the harp.
There is still the problem of there not being much spacing, and also a new problem that it is quite a bit more dim than before I had it hooked up to the TTL.

All and all I am very excited to see some progress here and with GREAT thanks to Dan. When I get this up and running I think it will even warrant my first video.
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