help building laser spyrograph "spinning mirrors"

I have been working on a spyrograph laser projector "a VERY crude one" and i was just wondering if anyone has any tips or pointers about how to acheive different effects using different materials such as difraction gratings and the optics from GGW sleds and whatnot. right now i have 6 1cmx1cm "roughly" mirrors glued to DVD drive spindle motors, when i shine my 300mW red onto one spinning mirror and then onto another closely mounted spinning mirror angled just right it maked a weird spinning psychadelic circle like you see in rogs project. i've been playing with the different speeds of the motors to create different effects. but i have not explored beyond just rotating mirrors.

what all could i do with a project like this... i wouldnt mind if it were not limited to just one type of output "spyrographic" i was thinking about making the first mirror a spinnable "by hand" mirror to change the main beams direction to a whole different set of optics...such as a mirror glued to the center of a speaker then through a difraction grating to make a room engulfing laser show.

things like that. please share any ideas or thought or cool things i could use to make cool effects, one tihng i LOVe to use is dripping goo from those desk paperweight desk things that entertain you. laser light through a spinning vail of that goop would be awsome!

please share all! i wanna have some real fun with this one... maybe even incorporate multiple diodes and wavelengths to create adjustable colors throughout the project.

Thx in advance all!!

"i look forward to Rog's thoughts on this, Jayrob also i know he's worked with things like this before.... and that beautiful 7 color acrylic laser box...drool"

what I thought was about puting a fan with cuted blades between the laser and thefirst mirror to get pulsed wave, I'm gona tell you aboutr it as soon as i get the parts

also... in light of what JUST HAPPENED UUUGGGHHHH!!!!! I HATE BACKFLASH!!!!!!!

is there such a thing...as a one way mirror... so my laser will shine THROUGH it unchanged, but REFLECT any light or at least most of the light back the other way... AWAY from my precious diodes wich i am losing LEFT AND RIGHT to backflash! omg im so frustrated, i've already lost 120 dollars of red diodes to backflashalone... i work allot with mirrors and stuff at parties, and i am always aware of backflash... but laser beams move too fast when they reflect off a surface at the moment you point it at it... its impossible to predict EXACTLY where it will go... ecspecially on curved surfaces.

so does a mirror or lens of any kind like this exist? thnx in advance

Dark

You can reuse parts from PHRs, some mirroirs and a 2 channel amp, and make a simple sound reactive scanner, I'll give you more info if you want. I think I'm gonna do a tutorial.

that would be real sweet BUILDABRL, do what soon! sounds like very usefull info, as was rog's 7 color projector tut.


i have a strange finding to report.... the diode i backflashed earlier... well out of sheer desperate hope... i turned it on one more time.... and it lazed PERFECTLY for a full 2 mins then faded back out to <5mW very quickly and suddenly... can this be explained?

Batteries lol, that will happen.

naj, not batteries, fully charged 3.6v aaa's...3 of them. the laser shined into a mirror and like.... died hardcore to almost nothing... i let it sit for hours... then it started working fine for like 2 mins str8 then it would fade out again. BUT this morning!!!! i turned it on and it works fine at 200Ma and still shows a nice beam.... and it DID NOT fade out after 2-3 mins either, ran for ten mins str8! "heatsinked of course" im at a loss for words i guess.... how could a laser recover from what apeared to be a leathal dose of 650nm light through the lens... and now it magicly works fine again... just not at the same power. it was at 450ma. but for a while it would fade out... and now overnight its basicly a 16x, instead of a 20x now. burns ok i guess... but not as good. i've grown out of burning anyways.

If you're electronically inclined, you could include a simple 555 timer pulse generating circuit and use it to modulate your laser. I got some pretty neat effects using one. It just chops the beam up, which can make those psychedelic spirals look even cooler..

of course im electronicly inclined, lol what would be the best timing for it, every 1ms seems kinda fast i was thinking about like every 15ms-30ms

A 10440 is 4.25v fully charged.
This goes over the 12v limit for Rkcstr's drivers.
Elektrofreak, do you have schematics? That sound coool.

its not a rockstar. its an LM317 with 35v cap.

and yeah a schematic would make things easier, im makeing some nice projects, i'll add some vids of the mirror assemblies and the effects i've acheived using a vail of bubling water...wait till you see.... its a SICK effect when the rotating spyro beam goes through the vail of water everything distorts very softly and goes EVERYWHERE, yes still uniformly. so cool, anyone ever done that before?

easiest thing to to is use a 120mm fan and have the laser shine toward the out side of it
i use this with my 3 mirror spiro and the 120mm fan needs to have its own pot.... found volume control ones work great this enables you to chance the timing witch makes for some cool pattern

dont worry about the fan burning up..... my rpl 450 hasnt yet ...... well not until i stop it

do you have a photo of what you did to the fan? did you just glue an angled mirror onto each blade so it chops the beam up in different speeds before it gets to the rotating mirrors? or vise versa?

I did nothing to the fan but put it in between the path of the laser and the rotating mirrors
no need for mirrors as your not looking to deflect the light just block it and as long as its one of thos cheep black plastic 120mm fans you will do fine