New laser scanner almost complete!

[Things]

I have been working on this over the last few weeks, and now it is pretty much complete apart from some side panels (Sheet aluminium) and maybe a handle!

Pics and descriptions: Things's Scanner

I'm happy with how it turned out

Total cost of the enclosure (- side panels) was only about $50AUD ! However there was a fair bit of work put into it.

And of course, beam pics will come later once the sun is gone

I am thinking about adding some 405 soonish.

-Dan

 

[jaycey]

Nice looking project ya got there Dan, what is the optic mount your using? I need to get a couple or make something similar for a projector ive got in the pipeline.

Laserwave 640...nice! me wants

 

[Things]

The optic mount is a 3 axis mount from Laser-Wave as well.

Thanks

 

[Trevor]

Looking great; I can't wait to see a finished product.

I really want to build a scanner at some point.

-Trevor

 

[Things]

Page updated with BEAMSHOTS!

 

[Trevor]

Page updated with BEAMSHOTS!

WHAAAAAA...!!!

That thing is epic!

-Trevor

 

[KiLLrB]

Wow i am truly impressed very nice work man :drool:

 

[jaycey]

Pictures like that are gonna cost me a lot of money...you really shoudnt have done the beam shots:drool:

 

[Things]

Yeah, there are quite a few people who I have managed to suck into scanners. If you think pointers are a money pit ....

 

[Things]

Updated page with 3 more pics of all the sides and roof on!

All it needs now is a paint!

I am thinking about adding a 12x blu-ray diode to it one day for a nice RGV.

 

[zaery]

Awesome scanner!
Now I really, really want a scanner!

Also, it's nice to see another dropbox user

 

[Greenmechanic]

Yes, as stated before, that's awesome.
I bought a 20mW star projector within the last month and it has started me thinking about building a scanner. I was working on some ideas for building a star projector, but I could not seem to get past size when working out the gears and D/G's system.
I think I'm going to bypass those and start studying up on building a scanner.
I've seen some good deals on parts lately, but don't know enough to start buying them yet.
I know what's what but I don't know if this what will work with that what.:thinking: LOL
Nothing a couple (X10) hours of reading won't cure.
:thanks:

 

[Things]

To get a basic scanner going you really only need 3 things, galvo's (The little mirrors that do all the scanning), a laser (duh ) and a DAC.

These 3 things can be had fairly cheaply. The DAC can be built by yourself (Look up the Soundcard DAC), the galvo's can be had from eBay for around $120, and the laser can be almost anything depending on how professional you want to go.

Basically, think of it like this:

The galvo's and the DAC are 1 part of the system. The DAC tells the galvo's where to move. The galvo's however are not part of the lasers, so nothing to look for there.

The DAC also controls the blanking on the laser(s) if it has any.

Essentially, the laser can be anything, and then all you need is a DAC and some galvo's!

Heck, if it was just to experiment with you could use a pointer and hold the button down. You wouldn't get any blanking but it'd be OK for home use. Once you get tired of that, then you have 2 options. TTL and Analog laser modules. TTL blanking means you can only turn the laser on and off, you have no brightness control (In most cases, some software packages have ways of using TTL lasers as analog in a tricky way). Analog lasers are the standard for lasershows. Once you start getting to mixing colours you will see why. These lasers are brightness controllable, and in the case of a RGB scanner, bring out the full 16.1 million colours. With TTL, you get 7 colours etc.

 

[ossumguywill]

VERY nice! I love it! I want a scanner but am too cheap for galvos, I'm messing with some sled optics with good results, but obviously nothing this cool! This really inspires me to not be so cheap


also:by the ttl-analog combination thing do you mean turning it on and off really fast like PWM so it appears to dim?
will

 

[Things]

Yeah. Not completely sure how it's done (Pangolin secret) without the PWM lines being clearly visible in the scanned image. It must be extremely fast PWM or something.

 

[ossumguywill]

Yeah. Not completely sure how it's done (Pangolin secret) without the PWM lines being clearly visible in the scanned image. It must be extremely fast PWM or something.

cool. I imagine at that angular speed PWM better be pretty fast to not show up on distant surfaces.