Quickshow issue

I have a couple of laserworld projectors, CS 500 rgbv and a CS 250 RGY, I was running them with laserworld show editor, worked fine, could run both projectors at 20k no probs, only real issue was the software crashed on me a lot, I think I narrowed it down to not being able to have any other usb device plugged in to my laptop, software would say dongle wasnt connected if anything else was plugged in.

Anyways, I bought Mamba black a few months ago, perfect, no crashes but I had to drop
the scan rate to 9k for the test pattern to be displayed correctly, so I sold that and just bought
pangolin quickshow, love the software but again have the same issue of having to drop scan rate to 9k.

Do I need to get the scanners tuned up to run happily with the new software or is this a critical moment when I need to get new scanners or projectors?

I think most would agree the common denominator is the scanners - laserworld rate their scanners like their lasers so if they say 20k I'm surprised you can get 8K out of them! The scanners may tune up a little but they wont go that far so I would say new scanners would be the thing to do. FB3 running quick show will be kinder to your scanners than anything else so if oyu cant get good output with this then you wont with anything else.
Rob

PS some clue as to where you are in the world would be good - fill it in in you profile - we dont need a house number and zip code but something more than on this planet is a help!

Was the test image the same size for all software?
I'm thinking this could be a difference between single ended and differential scanning outputs meaning the for the 2 'better' DACs you were using you're seeing a 10v swing rather than a 5v swing. The fact you could only hit about half of previous kpps would also bear this out.

Thanks Stan, is there any chance that the laserworld dac and the fb3 run on different voltages or something and thats whats messing with the scan rate, as I mentioned, 20k with the laserworld app was absolutely fine.

I have got my eye on a kvant spectrum 1 watt, hope to get that in the next few months and I am sure it would work perfectly straight off.

I will sort out my profile too :) im in london england.

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Originally Posted by norty303

Was the test image the same size for all software?
I'm thinking this could be a difference between single ended and differential scanning outputs meaning the for the 2 'better' DACs you were using you're seeing a 10v swing rather than a 5v swing. The fact you could only hit about half of previous kpps would also bear this out.

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Norty, I'm a novice, I dont know anything about single ended and differential scanning,
though your idea makes sense to me, I was thinking the dacs must be running differently somehow,
is there any way I can sort this problem out?

I am happy now with the software and always knew I would at some point need to
spend some real money on the projectors. Just trying to delay the inevitable.

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is there any way I can sort this problem out?

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Yep, there is! :)

Basically scan speed is dictated by the size of the image, which is why scanners are rated at XX kpps at YY degrees. Increase the size, the max scanrate comes down.

What I think was happening is the LW dac was only giving a single ended output, so the image would have been smaller and hence faster scanning. The other 2 units (I think) have differential outputs, meaning the mirrors move twice as far/bigger image - and hence lower maximum scanrate.

If you go into projector settings and reduce the master size to 50%, you should get much higher scanspeeds possible. And hopefully this will still be the same size as what you were getting from the LW DAC

Awesome, I will try it out, been bugging me for months now :)

Thanks a lot!

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Originally Posted by norty303

Yep, there is! :)

Basically scan speed is dictated by the size of the image, which is why scanners are rated at XX kpps at YY degrees. Increase the size, the max scanrate comes down.

What I think was happening is the LW dac was only giving a single ended output, so the image would have been smaller and hence faster scanning. The other 2 units (I think) have differential outputs, meaning the mirrors move twice as far/bigger image - and hence lower maximum scanrate.

If you go into projector settings and reduce the master size to 50%, you should get much higher scanspeeds possible. And hopefully this will still be the same size as what you were getting from the LW DAC

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Norty, mate, I owe you a pint :) its spot on. lol

I'll PM you my address, you can pop it in the post! ;)

What you'll now find is that you have to trade off scan speed for scan width. I normally sacrifice some scan speed for bigger scans, running around 17k.
Not sure if you can do it in Quickshow, but in LivePro you can set default scan speed for specific frames which allows you to have wide beams, whilst still being able to do faster graphics scans on a smaller target like a screen at the end of a venue. Very cool... :)

I totally see where you are coming from Norty, for text and graphics tight beams, for tunnels can expand it, thank you for your insight, its making sense now.