GoldenStar RGB 3000

Grettings to All!
Just got the my first ever laser, i'm originally a sound guy. just trying to add some colors and fun to our partys (we usually hire some cheap cs1000 from laserwrold going in sound mode...)
The laser is the Goldenstar RGB3000 got it with pelicase and shipping in the pacific for 830usd.
The inside of the thing... i am bit surprised with the All in One RGB module as i don't understand yet how colours are mixed in there.
Attachment 55063

For now i'm just playing with the built in programs and Sdcard ones...

I'm planning on getting Quickshow and an Fb3 to use the laser's analog modulation to it's full potential. and get better colors (rainbow like)

a quick test in the room with just a bit of e-cig smoke
Attachment 55064

They are mixed "in there" the same way you mix them in a projector with three lasers using Dichroic Optics. Picture taken at a Goldenstar Dealer's lab (with Permission) as I am working on a review of the Ten Watt.

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I do not suggest taking your laser apart while under warranty, or if all if you do not have to, as these are beautifully clean inside. GS is now taking steps to really, really make the beams match and overlap nearly perfectly so I would not dis-assemble your unit for fun. A four, a ten, and a twenty Watt in the lab were so closely matched in the beam parameters that it was difficult to tell what is what at equal powers.

See picture.

Steve

Steve, is that the 637 or the 638 10W module?
You mention the beams overlapping nicely but the spec for the 638 one says the 638 beam size is 4*2 and the G/B are 4*4.
Just wondering if the specs are accurate or you've got a 638 that they've expanded.

It does not have a color "donut" in normal use.

Its going on the beam analyzer this weekend or Monday and I'll get back to you. All I know is five lasers of varying power levels in a shipment were very well matched in shape and divergence at short ranges.
When I got to NY to see it I had a malfunction on the beam size / scanning computer that has since been repaired. So I brought the 10 Watt laser back with me for tests, the others were in projectors going out to his customers.

Steve

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#1 is 20w #2 is 5w 18' from aperture to screen

I seem to be getting TTL modulation via built-in programs and shows, does using Quickshow and an FB3 will allow the laser to run in analog modulation ? i understand this might be down to driver uses, it is possible to "upgrade" those ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7V5...ature=youtu.be

shots of the beam: laser about 4m from wall
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That will be because the standalone boards are crap. It’ll run properly when connected to a decent DAC.

Sorry Steve and VJ Aiwaz, can you confirm which red it is in the projectors/modules you’ve got there please?
Are they the D range or the P range?

Hey norty

Are they the D range or the P range?

not sure what you are asking

I'm asking which red is in the modules/projectors you are talking about/reviewing.
They do modules with 638 (cheaper, red 4*2mm) and 637 (more expensive, all wavelengths 4*4mm beams)
Goldenstar have 2 main ranges of projectors, the 'D' range (disco) and the 'P' range (professional). D uses the cheaper modules, P the more expensive.
So which are the ones you're showing?

well i guess these would be neither they are custom Clubcat-HP (technological artisan ) built to my specs for the US market with CDRH compliance in mind
so its hard to say what they are as far as the GS naming convention

Well I'm not really talking about the projectors, I'm talking about the modules used so the CDRH bit is a bit irrelevant.
If Steve is reviewing a 'Goldenstar 10W RGB' it would be useful to know which one it is he's reviewing.
It sounded like he got it through you, so I was hoping you'd know what was supplied.
I've been talking Winni over the weekend (who has been speaking with John) and it turns out they do 3 different 10W RGB modules.
2x 638 (thin beam and fat beam)
1x 637
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If its not clear which one Steve is reviewing, how do people who also want to order one know which to specify?
I've just ordered 2x 10W projectors with the thin beam 638 and DT50W, so it will be interesting to compare how they are with the one Steve has.

ok these are the fiber thin beam systems

Ok, thanks.
Fibre you say? Is that for beam shaping?

not sure yet still trying ti figure it i out but we suspect fiber bonded to the diode element to collimate

Mimi from goldenstar about the w3000 and there 4W unit "For its disvergence, yeah, it is a little big, because it is just with common collimator to adjust. This 3W, just for club and low cost laser, if you want better quality, you can consider 4W with 1W red , green 1W and 2W blue, this one has very sharp beam around 1mrad, and its driver is better than that driver in W3000"

From there i assume the 4W uses a different way of beam combination, and better analog modulation as well. I have one 4w on the way,with fb3 and quicshow, will do some test pattern comparison.

I've got 2 of the 4W modules, but may be a bit different to the latest ones as I got them over a year ago.
Mine ended up only being 900mW 520 as I think they were using the 700mW 520 overdriven. I fed this back to John at the time.
It's not the method of beam combination as there's only one of each green and blue, the 2 reds are knife edged.
The beam quality will be down to how they are corrected. I seem to recall it was cylindrical lenses on all diodes when I opened one up.

I don't want to be the elephant in the room here, but OP, I just hope you're planning on running those beams overhead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VJ AIWAZ

not sure yet still trying ti figure it i out but we suspect fiber bonded to the diode element to collimate

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Interesting. Any more info on this?

... I have some fiber-coupled IR-diodes with 50 micron or 105 micron fibers, directly attached before the laser crystal - another type contains several diodes in the housing, which are precollimated and focussed in a 105 micron fiber ... could be the same with fiber-coupled VIS-diodes.

So the laser beam is fed through the fiber and "homogenized" by removing the polarisation - essentially it's a LED-like light-source with the wavelength of the laser-diode and an emitter size of the fiber diameter ...

Viktor

I believe the fiber is used as a rod lens to (partially) correct the slow axis divergence and not as a long barrel lens to destroy coherence.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VDX

... I have some fiber-coupled IR-diodes with 50 micron or 105 micron fibers, directly attached before the laser crystal - another type contains several diodes in the housing, which are precollimated and focussed in a 105 micron fiber ... could be the same with fiber-coupled VIS-diodes.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by VDX

So the laser beam is fed through the fiber and "homogenized" by removing the polarisation - essentially it's a LED-like light-source with the wavelength of the laser-diode and an emitter size of the fiber diameter ...

Viktor

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... if the beam isn't inserted into the (long) fiber, but a short piece of fiber is placed perpendicular to the beam, then this is only a "cheap" replacement for a cylinder lens ...

Viktor

Just got the 4W unit, slightly bigger than the 3w. it has DT40 and better analog driver (you can see the 3 specific drivers, they all have a swtich on them from A&T- to T+ )
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Just running on the Sd built in programms as i'm still waiting on the FB3Qs to arrive. i like the colors of the 4W unit better, the Cyan is magnificient ( a bit more turquoise than the 3w)
More tests when quickshow is here !!

here's a video of the 3w unit running auto on the weekend. pretty powerfull already !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul-oHdkOFe0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3ZUIW D5H0xumB z8FBoLo6cyac967BN6VRs5CTw5upj94RraFZ_hAg4bqg

Finally got that Fb3Qs wohooo. plugged it in... and woow the 4w is actually really deceiving... it is definitly worst than the 3w modulation wise. miss aligned as well. It is meant to have DT40 Scanner, but the ILDA grid is already out of shape at 28kpps on the 4w
A few shoots of what's wrong, Sorry for the shitty background

The 4w unit is on the left and the 3w on the right.

analog linear modualtion grid, with at 28kpps
Attachment 55145

Analog Log Modulation at 28kpps
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Color patter of the RGB3W unit (analog log modulatipon)
Attachment 55147

Color Pattern of the RGB4W Unit (analog log modulation)
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Shot of missalignement
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Modulation between the red and blue ( seems like there's a threshold for red on the 4w unit) where the 4W was supposed to have better modulation (with his 3 separate driver) The 3w wins again...
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Now white beams... sharper beam they said... (from the bottom left is the 3w)
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Can you confirm me there's something wrong with this unit or is it just, "what we get" for that price...
My guess is something misaligned during transportation... can we fix those issues?..

The reason you see 2 red beams is because you have 2 diodes and they are combined in a knife edge arrangement.
In the module they are like this || but passing the beam through the scanners changes the orientation to =
The way to avoid that is to use PBS cube and 1/2 waveplate, but this is more costly. You get what you pay for, as they say. My W4W modules are exactly the same.
The smearing is a combination of scanner, driver and controller.
You can adjust this in the scanning settings, colour/blanking shift. The problem is that not all projectors will require the same, especially if hardware is different, so if you're running more than 1 projector per controller, you'll need to come up with a happy medium.
What are the scanners in the 3W? PT-A40 or something else?

Just got a very basic answear from Mimi Goldenstar, No words about about the scanner or modulation problems...

"The red color need alignment,I send picture to you,you can adjust it.

It have 2 red diode,the picture I send,one side not adjust,adjust other side and make it alignment.

Hope it can help you."

Attachment 55157
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Gonna try to re-align all that tonight... the thing is, how to know which of the 2 red diodes to re-align?

On the RGB3W the scanner are labelled "PH683TH" comparing with goldenstar website, they look like the AL30K (driver wise).
I am really deceived about the so called "DT40" that perform not as good as those AL30k. Even on beams, the 4W flickers more than the 3W
Norty do you mean that you encounter the same kinda misalignement in your W4W modules?
Attachment 55159
left is RGB3W

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bricenc

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Gonna try to re-align all that tonight... the thing is, how to know which of the 2 red diodes to re-align?

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With the laser power turned almost all the way down (for safety) use a small flat black tool to "block out" each beam before the knife mirror while looking at overlap on a wall. Usually I project a large + sign or square to make it easier to see. It will be obvious what diode is out. It wont take much force to move the mount unless its glued.

Thanks for the tip ahah yeah i feel pretty dumb not thinking about it. Dead simple and efficient. Cheers!!

As I said, its not misalignment if its a knife edge combine. The beams are literally next to each other, not overlapping.
They may have a too big gap, which could be tightened, but you won't do that by adjusting the mounts like the picture shows.
You need to slide one or other of the mounts back/forth to close up the gap a bit.
If you adjust the left right, you will simply cause the beams to not be parallel to each other, so they will cross at some point, but be out of alignment at a further distance, and get worse as the range increases.
Open the module, check what you have (it may have changed to PBS since I got mine, in which case it is misaligned)
Then understand how it flows from diode to aperture. Then identify the bit that needs to be moved.
I find this type of alignment is best performed with a bit of haze in the room, you can actually see when the beams are parallel in the module and on the exit.
If the module hits a bounce mirror onto the scanners, the best thing to do is take off the top and front of the projector and remove/swivel out of the way the bounce mirro and project straight onto a wall.
You'll get a beam like ||
If you go via the scanners you'll get disorientated as they turn the beam 90 degrees, so a left/right movement in the module will give an up/down movement on the wall.

Thanks for this answer Norty, and all this knowledge you're sharing, that's 100 times more helpfull than talking with mimigoldenstar... *vigil
So yeah i discovered much of what you explained trying to get those red to align for hours last night...:rolleyes:
But always ended up having a "diagonal shift" while trying to adjust the mount, i mean not purely horizontal and vetical, but a bit of both each time.

here's the inside of mine.
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So it's actually the mount (the one circled in blue in the ****) that has to be moved , needs to be moved back and fourth to get those red beams.
Gonna give an other try with the laser projector taken apart. :)*warn

Wohooo :D finally managed to get some "decent" alignment by tweaking the mounts and a bit of luck, definitely not perfect but acceptable to me, for now...
the reds remains "aligned" whether the projector is 3m or 12m from wall so it guess we're pretty good regarding parallelism of the beams. We're getting there thanks guys!!
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Good you had some success.
Yes, with knife edging you have to make some sacrifices usually.
The trick is to get the beam from the left red in your module pic as close to the tip of the prism as possible, and have a little bit of waste beam down the back of the prism.
Then get the right hand beam as close to the tip of the left prism as possible where it comes across - again a little bit of waste beam is going to hit the back of the prism.
So you sacrifice a bit of lost power (although its not where the most power is), for a beam that is more coherent and singular, and probably a bit more power density as a result.
I think that GS play it a bit too safe in terms of the clipping, which leads to nice high power figures, but with that big gap in the middle.
I may just put a PBS and waveplate in mine.

Hi bricenc,

How have you been getting on with the 3w and 4w lasers since your last post?

I have been considering both these and if you have a moment I would really be interested in finding out more about what you think of them.

1. Now that the beam alignment has been fixed, in terms of colors and intensity how does the 3w compare to the 4w?
2. You mentioned that you felt the scanners on the 3w where performing better than the 4w, is this still the case?
3. On the 3w, do you find that the blue overpowers the Red and Green?
4. On the 3w, do the beams mix well and medium distances, say 7.5 to 20 meters?
5. Anything else you think about them?

Thanks again for posting your thoughts on these, it's been really helpful.

I am also considering the more expensive projectors from 8lightspace. But these are a good bit more money and for my purposes may not make sense.

Sol B.

Sol, I think I may have covered this in my PM on SP (assuming you're not some other Sol...), but GS can build projectors to your spec, so you can decide which scanners you want in there.
Personally one of the most consistent bang for buck scanners I use is the PT-A40.
So you can pretty much get the performance you want for your budget. I think they use the AL scanners because they're the most cost effective but a little more will get you the PT's, which is what you'd get in the Lightspace units I believe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by norty303

Sol, I think I may have covered this in my PM on SP (assuming you're not some other Sol...), but GS can build projectors to your spec, so you can decide which scanners you want in there.
Personally one of the most consistent bang for buck scanners I use is the PT-A40.
So you can pretty much get the performance you want for your budget. I think they use the AL scanners because they're the most cost effective but a little more will get you the PT's, which is what you'd get in the Lightspace units I believe.

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Hi Norty,

Yes thank you, I am very much now leaning towards the 3w, and probably the standard scanners will be sufficient for the shows I am looking at, it seems like very good value.
I have very much taken your advice on board and reading this thread I now understand the difference between these two units a lot better.

Since the bricenc has both units, I was just interested in getting a bit more of his feedback on them. In particular how he feels they compare to each other.

Many Thanks
Sol B

Hi Sol, comparing the 3w and 4w, the 4w is really red, the 3w a bit blue but still more white than the 4w.
They are both the same "visibility" and the 3w has slighlty better/ smother modulation.

Overall i would the 3w unit because the case is smaller too. i am considering selling the 4w and getting a lightspace starbust 3w

i recently got my hand on an Akai APC40 mk2, before realizing it doesnt work natively with quickshow as the mk1 does... do you guys have any tips to make it work?

here's a video of the last party we did with the two lasers. (3w on the left)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6Ui7h001yk

Thank You Bricenc and Norty for all the feedback.

Yesterday I received my 3w laser from GoldenStar and its jusy excellent. Technology has really come on since i got my last projectors.

Very happy and I think I will get some more!
When I funds allow that is.

Sol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bricenc

Grettings to All!
Just got the my first ever laser, i'm originally a sound guy. just trying to add some colors and fun to our partys (we usually hire some cheap cs1000 from laserwrold going in sound mode...)
The laser is the Goldenstar RGB3000 got it with pelicase and shipping in the pacific for 830usd.
The inside of the thing... i am bit surprised with the All in One RGB module as i don't understand yet how colours are mixed in there.
Attachment 55063

For now i'm just playing with the built in programs and Sdcard ones...

I'm planning on getting Quickshow and an Fb3 to use the laser's analog modulation to it's full potential. and get better colors (rainbow like)

a quick test in the room with just a bit of e-cig smoke
Attachment 55064

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Nice .
It is RGB 3 in 1 all diode color mixed well inside .