Laserdock adapter?

[aiello]

I've ordered a Galvo kit with ILDA connector. The simplest way to drive this seems to be an adapter from a smartphone to ILDA and an app, such as Laseros from Wickedlasers.

The adapter (Laserdock) seems to be unavailable... Is there a cheap alternative, or could it be reverse engineered?

 

[Cyparagon]

The search term you want to use is DAC, or more specifically "laser DAC" or perhaps "ILDA DAC". Don't limit yourself to a particular brand. They're going to be several hundred dollars for one that isn't total shit. If that's too much, you chose the wrong hobby. Save up, or sell your gear.

Someone with a lot of electronics knowledge could reverse engineer the hardware, but the software and firmware is not feasible.

 

[aiello]

I have no interest in projecting a winking Santa Claus on the wall... I mainly want some basic stuff like moving planes, cones etc. using a single laser. This could probably be done at next to zero cost on a laptop (e.g. using Audacity) with analog waveforms and a stereo amp, and some DC voltages.

But since free apps are available, it would be easier to use a phone, and it's just the hardware DAC from USB to ILDA that's missing. Shouldn't cost more than the entire Galvo kit!

 

[aiello]

I see that the Laserdock is again available on Wickedlasers, for the bargain price of 399... Bet this thing could be cloned to cost less than 10 bucks.

Where are the Chinese when you need them?!

 

[aiello]

Turns out no adapter is needed, as the galvo kit already does it! I just fired it up and it has a dip switch mode selector. Starts with a demo of patterns.

That kit is better than expected: for 70 bucks you get a mains power supply, two driver boards, a galvo unit and a controller (RGB) with patterns stored on eprom.

With this kit you don't need to mess about with Arduino etc. No instructions included though, so it's a matter of trying the dip switch settings...

Luckily I had a box that might fit. Will be good to try with fog when finished!

 

[aiello]

Finally got this ready to try properly. Fabulous in dark with smoke or fog! Among many patterns it's got the vertical line sweep, like in Aliens... love it

DIP switch: 1: on/off, 9: switches between animated projection images / geometric patterns (good in fog), 10 halts the scanner in its spot. Not sure what other ones do...

Maybe needs some heat sinking for the two drivers, they get quite hot after a few minutes.

 

[aiello]

Here's a gif of a trial with a 300mW 635nm module. Next thing I'll try is a combined beam with red, green and blue.

before it was just a pointer without TTL blanking. The controller has three TTL outputs.
Full video at https://www.4shared.com/video/5mKMT8VFea/Red1.html