Curious to know how different the effect is coming from a whitelight ion vs RGB with slightly different beam profiles/divergences. Your St. Louis show, is that powered by ion?
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Ahh, ok, thanks Laserist. I might still ignite piles of metal just for hell of it ;)
in my experience, for best lumia results it helps to dealign the beams a little. with ion rigs, this is often done by placing a small prism just before the lumia optic.
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Yes I'm using a Coherent Innova Star at the moment. And before anyone asks; No, I don't think the only way you can do a great show is with an Ion. Ions are easy to design with, a pain in the ass to work with at times, and not remotely a guarantee of anything great, but they do feel magical to a small group of ancient laserists who will be getting together November 19th to pay our respects to a very special person in a very special place. Still I've seen plenty of piss poor Ion powered shows. A show either deserves to be called a 'Work of Art' or it doesn't...
If a Craftsman doesn't blame his tools - it's ridiculous to think an Artist would.
Laser Images used two prisms - one to disperse the colors and another to make the beams parallel again. The burn and 5 position "rock turret" were the only raw beam effects. There was a mirror between the prisms that allowed the beams to be moved (beam torquer) so the laserist could play the optical effects and/or tweak the alignment of the beams at the scanner bank.
Ions seem like the way to go for a uniform beam profle across the whole palette. I would absolutely love to run a 500mW ArKr but I don't want to have to deal with AO mods, dichro chopper colorbox, beamsplitters, prisms and all the kinematics to go with them not to mention the power requirements and worse, the cooling requirements....
there's a lot to be said for many lines, but you can do some beautiful lumia with solid state rgb.
http://youtu.be/oRy3X7Q2xBg
Love these lumia threads.
Also a very interesting way to modulate color:
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Yeah, that part is a bit of a hassle. In the past I've ducted my 60X right up into the attic. I can't bring myself to doing it again since someday the ceiling will need to be fixed! I really need to dump the air cooled and get a water cooled again... But I wont give up my ion's again!>:)Quote:
and worse, the cooling requirements....