Review: Reke 500RGB (laserius projectorus-cheapus)

[bennett326]

Yeah I thought my build would be like $600. But now I'm looking at a grand at the least. I do also want to make mine legal.... But you already have pangolin which is a big step

But Right now my PJ is at a stand still because of my crying wallet

 

[Guyfromhe]

Yeah I thought my build would be like $600. But now I'm looking at a grand at the least. I do also want to make mine legal.... But you already have pangolin which is a big step

But Right now my PJ is at a stand still because of my crying wallet

Hehe that's how they get you. I think to make it legal you need to get a bunch of approval and shit...

Yea it's a pretty big step...

Yeah the wallet does that when you beat it.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

If you need the back measurements I can get them when I get home if it helps.

Thanks, though I think I'll be okay now. I'm not sure if I'll even get a Reke for the back panel.

You could try and add a cheap ILDA show card to it... At least it has decent galvos... One of these days I will get a fancy set of galvos for mine... I am happy with the power output, it's already bright enough for home use. Analog would be nice but the galvos make the biggest diff.

Yeah, the galvos and lasers are decent. I'd have to figure out how those galvos are connected though. There's an op-amp on there, but I'm not so sure how it really connects up to those.

I do like how there's a 638nm laser in there, and I could probably bump up the output of the 445nm laser as well.

For analogue, it's not too hard to set up with a transistor circuit. You will, however, need a different input, like a sound card DAC instead of the TTL-based one in these machines.

Or you could wire in directly to the galvos and stuff...but yeah I doubt I will bother ordering anything from them...

The worst part about the $90 gift card (if/when it arrives) is that I have to spend it at DD and they have really lame shit except the projectors, and those require $50 in shipping. Who the hell would buy a wedding dress from a shop like that?

Doctorbass:

Can you comment on the color reproduction of both projectors?

Also I think the comment on the bending base-plate of the L-86 is somewhat unfair as the case gets its rigidity from having all the sides screwed together. If they're taken apart like you've shown the plate loses its structure.

 

[Guyfromhe]

Thanks, though I think I'll be okay now. I'm not sure if I'll even get a Reke for the back panel.



Yeah, the galvos and lasers are decent. I'd have to figure out how those galvos are connected though. There's an op-amp on there, but I'm not so sure how it really connects up to those.

I do like how there's a 638nm laser in there, and I could probably bump up the output of the 445nm laser as well.

For analogue, it's not too hard to set up with a transistor circuit. You will, however, need a different input, like a sound card DAC instead of the TTL-based one in these machines.



The worst part about the $90 gift card (if/when it arrives) is that I have to spend it at DD and they have really lame shit except the projectors, and those require $50 in shipping. Who the hell would buy a wedding dress from a shop like that?

Doctorbass:

Can you comment on the color reproduction of both projectors?

Also I think the comment on the bending base-plate of the L-86 is somewhat unfair as the case gets its rigidity from having all the sides screwed together. If they're taken apart like you've shown the plate loses its structure.

I dunno what if any electronics go between the ILDA port and the galvos.. There are a bunch of op-amps on the DAC AMP board as well, I don't know if those are just to run the internal show or what... If you look at a show card it looks pretty simple with nothing really to it as far as components.

Yes you would need to feed it analog signal to get it to work right... I thought that you needed very fancy lasers to run them in analog and get consistent output from them... I know you can get like a flexmod 3 or whatever it's called and use that as the driver and that's supposed to give you analog modulation as far as I understand but I thought that it wouldn't work even if you were to give an analog signal... Maybe it is just that easy?

Yea the $90 gift card is pretty useless...

 

[Doctorbass]

I have read that we can overdrive the RGB500 galvo from 7.5K to 15K ( with some risk of loosing details).. but i woudl like to know how we can perform the mod for overdriving?. is it a pot, a crystal or any other component to modify?..

Doc

 

[Guyfromhe]

I have read that we can overdrive the RGB500 galvo from 7.5K to 15K ( with some risk of loosing details).. but i woudl like to know how we can perform the mod for overdriving?. is it a pot, a crystal or any other component to modify?..

Doc

You probably heard it from me and you're probably talking about the Reke.. it's not really a mod and you need ILDA to do it... Basically any ILDA software lets you set how many PPS you are outputting... You can set it usually from 2K to 50k... After you go above your rated speed straight lines get curved because it's basically throwing away points it can't draw... This leads to a more stable image (less flicker) but detail gets lost... I don't mind scanning at 15K on my 10K... Some corners get rounded out but it makes it a lot less flashy...

Me Overscanning:


Things not Overscanning:


Notice the square wave coming out of nyancat's ass is more like a sinewave in mine and the edges are a bit squished.

The video is about 50% more flickery than the actual projection is though.. Bu you can see the effect of overscanning... You can change it on the fly in your show software too and in good software you can even set the scan speed of each ilda file.

EDIT: Also I think that was one of my first ILDA demos I was probably scanning that at 20 or 30 KPPS, I don't remember.

EDIT 2: Almost positive that was at 30K... I will probably re-shoot it at 15 now that I have my camera settings figured out.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Adjusting the pattern size might help with the speed too.

 

[COCONUTS]

Well I had a little time to fool with mine today. I opened up to see if anything was loose, but nothing was. I have what I'm guessing is some sort of filter in front of one of the modules that has a chip out of the side, but I don't think it was damaged in transit as i never found anything in the chassis or the box so I think it was shipped this way and must not alter any performance. While I had the hood up, I thought I would take some photo's, although they aren't that good. I see noticeable differences between mine and "Guyfromhe" projector. I couldn't tell you other than mine has a pair of keys instead of a on/off switch what else is different because I don't know the parts by nameop:


Anyways, I'll post them so you experts can see what has changed. They sure did use a ton of glue. If anyone thinks that chipped edge of glass is or will be a problem, please let me know. I ran the projector in the dark in demo and sound mode and it looks good to me... Now I need Pangolin Quickshow if I could find some $$$ laying around or maybe get rid of some handhelds....

 

[Guyfromhe]

Looks like a chipped dichro... which is basically a window/mirror depending on the wavelength... Since the beams going through the dichros never move you will never notice that chip in the glass... Don't worry about it it won't effect anything unless you decide to realign the whole optics tray in which case you will probably want better dichros anyway.

Your chip is marked 30k 15c which doesn't fit the usual pattern of markings (galvo speed, number of colors) I don't think they were using 30Ks on those (if they are you hit the jackpot) and I really don't see any way they could make 15 colors easily without having full RGB...


And I added to the OP about that projector... It looks like an older model or something because it projects earlier years and is missing newer years that mine has...
I like the key switch though.

 

[Things]

Me Overscanning:


Things not Overscanning:


Notice the square wave coming out of nyancat's ass is more like a sinewave in mine and the edges are a bit squished.

.

It's all relative though. I paid almost double the price of this projector just for those galvo's alone, I've gotta say for the price of this whole deal, it does pretty damn well

My first Scanpro20's weren't even that good. Infact they were terrible

I'd love to grab one of these projectors to check out one day, heck, maybe even 2 to compliment my main 1.6W RGB

Maybe once I win the lottery .. dreamin

 

[Guyfromhe]

It's all relative though. I paid almost double the price of this projector just for those galvo's alone, I've gotta say for the price of this whole deal, it does pretty damn well

My first Scanpro20's weren't even that good. Infact they were terrible

I'd love to grab one of these projectors to check out one day, heck, maybe even 2 to compliment my main 1.6W RGB

Maybe once I win the lottery .. dreamin

yea i know this a great deal and good starter unit, i was just trying to show what overscanning did to an image.

hey do you have "mr.vain" for quickshow?

 

[Things]

I don't know if it has been ported to QuickShow yet. I used to have it for ShowRider along with heaps of other shows, but I lost them all when I reformatted. If you look on the PL FTP, I think it's under whiteg shows or something, the mr vain ILDA file is there somewhere. The file already matches the music, so you should be able to just import it to Quickshow, shove it in the time line with the song, and stretch out the ILDA frame to the same length.

Quite a shame I forgot to save all my shows, I had a few shows I had converted from the LD2K platform as well

 

[Guyfromhe]

I don't know if it has been ported to QuickShow yet. I used to have it for ShowRider along with heaps of other shows, but I lost them all when I reformatted. If you look on the PL FTP, I think it's under whiteg shows or something, the mr vain ILDA file is there somewhere. The file already matches the music, so you should be able to just import it to Quickshow, shove it in the time line with the song, and stretch out the ILDA frame to the same length.

Quite a shame I forgot to save all my shows, I had a few shows I had converted from the LD2K platform as well

I only got the Spaghetti show which didn't have any raw files... I converted a few that way myself... I can't seem to get on to the PL ftp site.. It hasn't worked for a week or more now for me... Did they change the pw or something?

EDIT: It seems someone has fucked over their FTP site and ruined it for everyone -.- I hate humanity.... Anyway Do you happen to still have access to the site Things? Any chance you could grab it for me? I only have a few posts over an PL... I should probably be more active there... Anyway, if you are cool enough to still have access if you don't mind dropping me that file if it's still there.

Thanks.

-Jared

There's a ton of great shows on the Pangolin show space but most are for LD2k which I can't afford And the imported frames from LD2k into QS are all out of order and broken...
Boo-urns!

 

[COCONUTS]

The amount of scratches and dust/dirt on some of the components leads me to believe they used parts from other already built units, but that is just a guess.

I'm happy overall with my purchase and if I can swing the software, I can see a fun new hobby with the unit. Computers are my favorite and anything that interfaces with them only makes it better. It certainly is more interesting than burning stuff with a hand held which was neat like 2 times.

As long as it operates fine, I'm OK with it.

 

[Guyfromhe]

The amount of scratches and dust/dirt on some of the components leads me to believe they used parts from other already built units, but that is just a guess.

I'm happy overall with my purchase and if I can swing the software, I can see a fun new hobby with the unit. Computers are my favorite and anything that interfaces with them only makes it better. It certainly is more interesting than burning stuff with a hand held which was neat like 2 times.

As long as it operates fine, I'm OK with it.

the dust is probably from it sitting fora few years... it was probably made in 2008 or something...

yes computer interfacing is good...

 

[Doctorbass]

Thanks Coconuts for the review.

The unit you received is almost EXACTLY the same as mine.

Except the chip with 30K 15C ?????

I thoughth that mine could be a 15K instead of 10 because it is 15K 7c.... but

i now doubt that this label really is the KPPS spec and colors...


BTW.. I realigned mine with the little screw on teh brass mount and they are nearly perfectly aligned now. that give a really better result witgh all colors aligned... more realistic colors.

I thing that the galvo mirror you have are bigger than on mine... at least they seem larger... but i have the same galvo revision too.

I tried mine with the DMX yesterday.. it was pretty interesting.


Mine have alot of dust inside wich make me think that they are probably old stock too...

Doc