Re: [UPDATE: Finished] Yellow Beam Combiner + Beam
Alright, final part of the project. From start to finish of producing a 16 color beamshot.
First step was to wire up some TTL control and a microcontroller for the lasers:
It was a bit of a squeeze, but I managed to fit in a 5V regulator dropped through two diodes along with a pair of transistors and potentiometers. The microcontroller is an Arduino. I have some PICs but this was much easier to set up and code for a temporary project.
A total of 12 lines of code later and I have the brightness of both lasers controlled via the potentiometers. The brightness is nowhere near linear (Pretty much the full brightness range is to be had within the first 20% of the turn) but I didn't feel like over complicating things.
Turning down the brightness on the green let me take an operating photo that wasn't completely overpowered by the laser.
From here I set up a tripod and took a total of 16 pictures, turning up the green just a tiny bit between each one (and for the last picture I turned the red off entirely).
I had to be careful for the photography, I needed pictures with a strong well defined beam but absolutely no background so that I could composite them into a single image.
To accomplish this, I blocked out every scrap of light from the room via towels/pillows and waited for it to become dark outside. I then covered the module with black paper and had the beam shine into a box made of black paper to trap any light from the dot. Exposure was 1 second on a tripod. This was made much easier with the low power beams, higher power lasers can light up the room even with precautions.
This produced 16 of these photos in varying colors:
Now this photo is definitely a product of photoshop however no colors have been altered in any way I simply moved each beam shot around until it looked like a fan.
And there is the 16 color beamshot. I must say that the laser looks much better in photographs. In person you can see the green beam inside the red beam unless you are a few feet away.
I might replace the green with a blu-ray tomorrow and put together some more beamshots. I may also give green + blue a try and see how much green gets through the cube.
Alright, final part of the project. From start to finish of producing a 16 color beamshot.
First step was to wire up some TTL control and a microcontroller for the lasers:
It was a bit of a squeeze, but I managed to fit in a 5V regulator dropped through two diodes along with a pair of transistors and potentiometers. The microcontroller is an Arduino. I have some PICs but this was much easier to set up and code for a temporary project.
A total of 12 lines of code later and I have the brightness of both lasers controlled via the potentiometers. The brightness is nowhere near linear (Pretty much the full brightness range is to be had within the first 20% of the turn) but I didn't feel like over complicating things.
Turning down the brightness on the green let me take an operating photo that wasn't completely overpowered by the laser.
From here I set up a tripod and took a total of 16 pictures, turning up the green just a tiny bit between each one (and for the last picture I turned the red off entirely).
I had to be careful for the photography, I needed pictures with a strong well defined beam but absolutely no background so that I could composite them into a single image.
To accomplish this, I blocked out every scrap of light from the room via towels/pillows and waited for it to become dark outside. I then covered the module with black paper and had the beam shine into a box made of black paper to trap any light from the dot. Exposure was 1 second on a tripod. This was made much easier with the low power beams, higher power lasers can light up the room even with precautions.
This produced 16 of these photos in varying colors:
Now this photo is definitely a product of photoshop however no colors have been altered in any way I simply moved each beam shot around until it looked like a fan.
And there is the 16 color beamshot. I must say that the laser looks much better in photographs. In person you can see the green beam inside the red beam unless you are a few feet away.
I might replace the green with a blu-ray tomorrow and put together some more beamshots. I may also give green + blue a try and see how much green gets through the cube.
Looks like it worked out pretty well all round, I look forward to seeing this all built into a host.
