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FrozenGate by Avery

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Galvo amps do get hot, very hot. I ran my DT40W's for a 30 second test without additional heatsinking, low pps and just a grid pattern when I first got them, and they were pretty toasty. They're now bolted to some beefy heatsinks. When they go in my projector they will have a cooling fan each :)
 
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Hey guys,

Just wanted to reach out and say thanks for all the assistance and patience with my questions. I've just finished building my first projector and it's pretty awesome :)

I was really lucky. A friend of mine was going through a purge of some of the incredible mass of gear he has and within that I found the beautiful aluminium case! The front has the most beautiful openable hatch. I'm yet to cut another section of aluminium with appature but it will come.

The two sections inside the case immediately lent themselves to PSU and optical table area.
IMG_7690t.jpg

IMG_7696t.jpg


So I got to work and had a friend CNC mill a 5mm aluminium plate with 10mm M4 countersunk and tapped 10mm grid and some adaptor plates for all the components I was going to put down. (I ended up having to mill some of them by hand as I didn't get the right specs to my CNC friend in time)..

I thought it'd look nice with a screen (probably of limited real use, but it was a good excuse to try out Fritzing Fab and I had a few other circuits I wanted to test out) so I built a board with 16x2LCD screen which snaps onto an Arduino MEGA. So far it PWM controls the rear fan, and (not shown in the photos) I've got a daisy chain of Dallas DS18B20's visiting each component. (which is really just a gimmick, but looks nice) It stores in EEPROM a running log "laser hours" of how long the system has been up. On screen it scrolls through the temperature of all the devices (heads, driver/PSUs, x,y amps etc), the voltage of the 24V and 12V PSU's and shows fan RPM. If people want I can make a video.

DSC_1150t.jpg


I broke out some other pins as I want to interface this to the pangolin either via the TTL or DMX interfaces, oh and there is a 8pin keyboard input as I have some self adhesive button strips (up/down/left/right/select/exit style) which I was going to glue on just above or below the screen but I don't have time to write any more software that would use it right now.

So I ended up getting one of those beautiful 1.?W "460nm" blues that styropyro was selling (hey dude, thanks!)..and a LW 637 from LSP... and while I was going to get a LW 532 I ended up getting a deal I simply couldn't refuse on a DHOM 1.5W 532 which is just ridiculously bright. I had to rip the DHOM PSU apart somewhat to fit it inside.. but it made it!

The dichros came from LSP (and I had an embarrassing moment we found out my red dichro was in the wrong way! - thanks Dave)

The DAC is a Pangolin FB3-SE which is..yeah.. wow.

The galvo's are the spacelas PT-40K's which will be replaced eventually with a DT scanner.

IMG_7707t.jpg

IMG_7710t.jpg

IMG_7708t.jpg


I'll put some beam shots up when I can go somewhere safe with this thing - right here it's a bit scary.

Thanks again, this is an awesome community!
 
Wow thats a NICE build mate! what power does that 637 laserwave put out?

1.5 watts of green??!! :drool: That in itself is a thing to behold.

What were the black things next to the itrust card in the first two shots - they look like scan amps.

Cheers
Ben
 
vk2fro said:
Wow thats a NICE build mate! what power does that 637 laserwave put out?

1.5 watts of green??!! :drool: That in itself is a thing to behold.

What were the black things next to the itrust card in the first two shots - they look like scan amps.

Cheers
Ben
Click to expand...
I haven't been able to verify the output of the 637, but itsa good! :)

The black things are the scan amps which if you look in the other photos now sit below on the main plate (on an angle so the M4 holes line up with my 10x10 grid - bloody thing!)..

I screwed up the placement of the Pangolin and the ITrust, they should be swapped to allow the scan amps to be on the left hand side (where the space for them is!!) and so the dip switches could be on the outside.. I will fix this on the next rebuild.
 
I thought as such that they were scan amps. Ok so you havent metered the 637, but what did you buy? i.e. a 600mw 637, a 1000mw 637?

I'm tossing the coin over 600 mw or 900mw and basing my other lasers off that.
 
It was a 350mW as I was trying to reduce the spend :) I might upgrade it one day. The colour mix is skewed but looks amazing at lower overall powers.
 
yes it would be a tad green heavy at full tilt with that 1.5 watter :)
 
Indeed. And.. I'm pleasantly surprised by the blue from styro - except maybe for the modulation response (only kicks in about half way) but the beam quality is quite nice!
 
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Honestly, I'm a bit slack I don't know.. Would need to ask him, it is in the metal cage in the top right of the photo, DB15 style connector (if that is a hint at all?), 6V supply, modulation input isn't broken out to a connector I don't think just leads connected somewhere in the middle of the board.. that should narrow it down a bit? I *thought* it was flexmod...
 
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That is a slick build! Very nice arrangement.. plus I really like the case.

That's not a flexmod on your blue module.. most likely that's a Lasever head, so it's using one of their drivers. One thing you can do to help the modulation issue is to set your analog signals to "logarithmic" in the Quickshow settings.
 
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Seems hes in sydney (go update your profile trioxide). We're gonna catch up sometime after my projector is finished and check out one anothers machines. I'll be sure to take a digital camera that can shoot video and a tripod.

Do you intend to hang your projector from a truss of some kind, or just place it on a shelf?
 
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I'm going to fold some 5mm alu into a big C bracket that will allow mounting from above or below. Will need to reinforce the sides.. more metal work!

Ideally I'd like to to be able to tripod mount it.
 
trioxide said:
Hey guys,

Just wanted to reach out and say thanks for all the assistance and patience with my questions. I've just finished building my first projector and it's pretty awesome :)

I was really lucky. A friend of mine was going through a purge of some of the incredible mass of gear he has and within that I found the beautiful aluminium case! The front has the most beautiful openable hatch. I'm yet to cut another section of aluminium with appature but it will come.

The two sections inside the case immediately lent themselves to PSU and optical table area.
IMG_7690t.jpg

IMG_7696t.jpg


So I got to work and had a friend CNC mill a 5mm aluminium plate with 10mm M4 countersunk and tapped 10mm grid and some adaptor plates for all the components I was going to put down. (I ended up having to mill some of them by hand as I didn't get the right specs to my CNC friend in time)..

I thought it'd look nice with a screen (probably of limited real use, but it was a good excuse to try out Fritzing Fab and I had a few other circuits I wanted to test out) so I built a board with 16x2LCD screen which snaps onto an Arduino MEGA. So far it PWM controls the rear fan, and (not shown in the photos) I've got a daisy chain of Dallas DS18B20's visiting each component. (which is really just a gimmick, but looks nice) It stores in EEPROM a running log "laser hours" of how long the system has been up. On screen it scrolls through the temperature of all the devices (heads, driver/PSUs, x,y amps etc), the voltage of the 24V and 12V PSU's and shows fan RPM. If people want I can make a video.

DSC_1150t.jpg


I broke out some other pins as I want to interface this to the pangolin either via the TTL or DMX interfaces, oh and there is a 8pin keyboard input as I have some self adhesive button strips (up/down/left/right/select/exit style) which I was going to glue on just above or below the screen but I don't have time to write any more software that would use it right now.

So I ended up getting one of those beautiful 1.?W "460nm" blues that styropyro was selling (hey dude, thanks!)..and a LW 637 from LSP... and while I was going to get a LW 532 I ended up getting a deal I simply couldn't refuse on a DHOM 1.5W 532 which is just ridiculously bright. I had to rip the DHOM PSU apart somewhat to fit it inside.. but it made it!

The dichros came from LSP (and I had an embarrassing moment we found out my red dichro was in the wrong way! - thanks Dave)

The DAC is a Pangolin FB3-SE which is..yeah.. wow.

The galvo's are the spacelas PT-40K's which will be replaced eventually with a DT scanner.

IMG_7707t.jpg

IMG_7710t.jpg

IMG_7708t.jpg


I'll put some beam shots up when I can go somewhere safe with this thing - right here it's a bit scary.

Thanks again, this is an awesome community!
Click to expand...

Fucking hell, this is too awesome.
 
trioxide said:
I'm going to fold some 5mm alu into a big C bracket that will allow mounting from above or below. Will need to reinforce the sides.. more metal work!

Ideally I'd like to to be able to tripod mount it.
Click to expand...

A tripod is not too bad an idea. Get a speaker one, and make a baseplate for the projector to sit on. Secure the projector with truck cargo tie downs. I saw it mentioned on PL.

Never put a tripod into a public venue if the public can get at it. :)
 
vk2fro said:
A tripod is not too bad an idea. Get a speaker one, and make a baseplate for the projector to sit on. Secure the projector with truck cargo tie downs. I saw it mentioned on PL.

Never put a tripod into a public venue if the public can get at it. :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, definitely need to find some good mounting method. No idea what is going on in this video, but I think there might be some footage of my machine doing some text and some beams : Clannies Fireworks 2012 - YouTube

Don't judge me :can:
 
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