Motorized Dichro mirror mounts?

I know high powered projectors are "sometimes" offered an upgrade of motorized dichroic mirror mounts.
These tend to be expensive but in perspective become less of a price factor as you climb the projector spec ladder (in perspective to the rest).

I was wondering: Has anyone build a motorized dichroic mirror mount or are there manufacturers selling these mounts seperately (and potentially not at astronomical cost) ?

My first guesses are no due to how scarce the demand/market could be for this potentially.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by masterpj

I know high powered projectors are "sometimes" offered an upgrade of motorized dichroic mirror mounts.
These tend to be expensive but in perspective become less of a price factor as you climb the projector spec ladder (in perspective to the rest).

I was wondering: Has anyone build a motorized dichroic mirror mount or are there manufacturers selling these mounts seperately (and potentially not at astronomical cost) ?

My first guesses are no due to how scarce the demand/market could be for this potentially.

---

Back in the day, we just used 2 part epoxy and glued the dichroic mirror onto the motor shaft of a small 12 volt DC motor. We did this as a quick and small foot-print solution for color modulation of the main output beam of a 1-2 watt krypton ion laser. The dichro dimensions were approximately 10mm x 20mm. Sometimes we used two 10mm x 10mm dichros, each with different color properties. The two 10 x 10's were epoxied together to make one 10 x 20. The long axis of the 10 x 20 was glued perpendicular to the motor shaft.

But then, the best way to "build a motorized dichroic mirror mount" all depends on what you want to achieve with it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by masterpj

I know high powered projectors are "sometimes" offered an upgrade of motorized dichroic mirror mounts.
These tend to be expensive but in perspective become less of a price factor as you climb the projector spec ladder (in perspective to the rest).

I was wondering: Has anyone build a motorized dichroic mirror mount or are there manufacturers selling these mounts seperately (and potentially not at astronomical cost) ?

My first guesses are no due to how scarce the demand/market could be for this potentially.

---

I have a couple i bought surplus that I used in a lumia build to just walk the beam. I'll dig it out and get some photos.

My first thought was PJ meant motorized mirror mounts for remote alignment of a projector like I've seen offered on some higher end Kvants. And not for some sort of an effect... Could be wrong though.

I've bought some miniature stepper motors to make such a dichro mount but I stopt designing the mount because you have to be able to steer them somehow.
Kvant dichros can be controlled from within QS/beyond. But I have the feeling that this is a closed feature not available for usage by other parties than kvant...
This means that you have to provide another interface/software for this which makes it less nice than an integrated solution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bradfo69

My first thought was PJ meant motorized mirror mounts for remote alignment of a projector like I've seen offered on some higher end Kvants. And not for some sort of an effect... Could be wrong though.

---

You are more up-to-date in knowing what is current in this technology than I am, and therefore NOT wrong. ;-)

Does anyone have a more detailed description for what is meant by remote alignment of motorized mirror mounts, e.g. using XY galvos to hit a remote mirror whose reflection needs XY adjustment?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lasermaster1977

You are more up-to-date in knowing what is current in this technology than I am, and therefore NOT wrong. ;-)

Does anyone have a more detailed description for what is meant by remote alignment of motorized mirror mounts, e.g. using XY galvos to hit a remote mirror whose reflection needs XY adjustment?

---

Basically, the technology is, rather than having to pop the cover off to do an alignment, (which could be a bitch if it's up on a truss in a ceiling somewhere) these dichros are motorized to be able to correctly lay red, blue green on top of each other. (Rather than having to futz with allen keys too.) I forgot how exactly but, it sounds like Pangolin has built controls into Beyond that can "talk" to those mounts and get them to move up down, left right to fix an alignment issue. I've only heard about them being in Kvant projectors.

Actually... here. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw6Pz2nTQVM

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bradfo69

Basically, the technology is, rather than having to pop the cover off to do an alignment, (which could be a bitch if it's up on a truss in a ceiling somewhere) these dichros are motorized to be able to correctly lay red, blue green on top of each other. (Rather than having to futz with allen keys too.) I forgot how exactly but, it sounds like Pangolin has built controls into Beyond that can "talk" to those mounts and get them to move up down, left right to fix an alignment issue. I've only heard about them being in Kvant projectors.

Actually... here. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw6Pz2nTQVM

---

Thanks Brad, RGB dichro projector alignment. Very cool. This idea isn't new but it seems to be for RGB projectors of the day.

The electro-mechanics seems pretty straight forward and is still a form of 2-axis mirror control. Making it all small is no doubt the other challenge, but very doable, maybe a kind of motorized NRC MM-1 mount where the end result is to pivot one dichro mirror axis up/down and it's other axis left/right. Sending alignment commands through projector ILDA interface is the key. There seem to be plenty of user-defined pins that can be used for a plethora of control and/or serial communication methods.

Are pins 8.9.10,11 and 21,22,23,24 of the "standard" ILDA connector still user-defined?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lasermaster1977

Are pins 8.9.10,11 and 21,22,23,24 of the "standard" ILDA connector still user-defined?

---

Best as I know.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lasermaster1977

Thanks Brad, RGB dichro projector alignment. Very cool. This idea isn't new but it seems to be for RGB projectors of the day.

The electro-mechanics seems pretty straight forward and is still a form of 2-axis mirror control. Making it all small is no doubt the other challenge, but very doable, maybe a kind of motorized NRC MM-1 mount where the end result is to pivot one dichro mirror axis up/down and it's other axis left/right. Sending alignment commands through projector ILDA interface is the key. There seem to be plenty of user-defined pins that can be used for a plethora of control and/or serial communication methods.

Are pins 8.9.10,11 and 21,22,23,24 of the "standard" ILDA connector still user-defined?

---

lookup open source flexure microscope. They use an odd arrangement but demonstrate how to control stepper motors with arduino and aux boards. The steppers are too big so the real challenge is to find small accurate steppers. Another thought is to see it you can limit the motion needed to one axis. Just a thought. Also use one color as the “fixed” one, now you only control two mounts. Don’t forget focus too if you want the full experience.

I bought these steppers to use instead of a thumbscrew on an mm1:
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/40003...27424c4dJvYvEy

Heloo,
In this way you may prefer more precision 28BYJ-48 steppers cuz of 1/64 ratio and hight precision of 0,18°. Here they can be bought with ULN driver for Arduino. In some way you can use LV8729 on your duino-board to achive full 1/128 stepping.
Attachment 58016

It will looks like that with some 3d-printed magic:
Attachment 58017 Attachment 58019

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by polishedball

I have a couple i bought surplus that I used in a lumia build to just walk the beam. I'll dig it out and get some photos.

---

Interested.
Please do show them when you can.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bradfo69

Basically, the technology is, rather than having to pop the cover off to do an alignment, (which could be a bitch if it's up on a truss in a ceiling somewhere) these dichros are motorized to be able to correctly lay red, blue green on top of each other. (Rather than having to futz with allen keys too.) I forgot how exactly but, it sounds like Pangolin has built controls into Beyond that can "talk" to those mounts and get them to move up down, left right to fix an alignment issue. I've only heard about them being in Kvant projectors.

Actually... here. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw6Pz2nTQVM

---

Yes and also to keep the projectors sealed.. Opening a laser projector up in a non clean enviroment or wanting to keep them truly waterproof means you really shouldn't open up a projector.. Or opening a projector up in a foggy room is not good..

One thing of driving with a stepper directly is resolution issues and microstepping means no. Holding torgue..it would take nothing to get horrible misalignment or have Vibrations interfere with the alignment... You need something that provides some friction

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Methelina

Heloo,
In this way you may prefer more precision 28BYJ-48 steppers cuz of 1/64 ratio and hight precision of 0,18°. Here they can be bought with ULN driver for Arduino. In some way you can use LV8729 on your duino-board to achive full 1/128 stepping.
Attachment 58016

It will looks like that with some 3d-printed magic:
Attachment 58017 Attachment 58019

---

AHH I see no torque issue because you move the photons not the source! But now you have 4 galvo sets! RGB and XY. Killing a fly with a sledge.

Those are the parts from the flexure microscope I was thinking of. PJ you are right about torque but the thing is you can gear down from a faster stepper to get torque and also more effective resolution. Steps are steps but if you shrink the spacing on those steps through gearing you get finer resolution. In fact you can take through just three gears a very small torque and make a monster you can't turn with your fingers.

It's like a timebase based on 10mhz clock. If you divide down to seconds its about 23 divide by 2's. each time you double the accuracy/precision. different but related quantities.

Anyway so maybe the point is use a faster turning servo with less steps you gear down. We only use a very small part of the full movement. Get it close by hand then engage the system.
I see this as a nice I2C application.

Hey in fact how is this for making it complicated. Use a 1% beam splitter. IE a glass slide. Use a prism to break the beam into the three colors. Have that hit a one dimensional detector array from like cheap spectrophotometer. Use that info to make a closed loop feedback to keep the beams where you want them. Use a second one to pickup on the y axis or just a ccd array in general. Now it auto finds the center of the beam, overlaps, matches the divergence of each beam (using the ccd array you can profile the beam). Now go make it work....see you in a lifetime.

Gearing down indeed provides some resistance in the gears but lets not forget that there are issues like backlash and tolerance issues with gears.. it might be a non issue I am not sure!
Most certainly would worth trying though!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by masterpj

Gearing down indeed provides some resistance in the gears but lets not forget that there are issues like backlash and tolerance issues with gears.. it might be a non issue I am not sure!
Most certainly would worth trying though!

---

Picomotors will do the job, but they're expensive.

I like the idea of an xy set of mirrors. Not killing fly with hammer. I think you could use linear actuators to turn set screws on a worm gear. They don’t have to be fast. You could use a single motor and gearing to go between the two sets. Remember one stays constant. If you arrange it right all you do is rotate a gear to go between the sets of worm gears. The worms move an arc with a mirror. Think inside out section of a gear on a pivot point with a mirror glued to it. One motor per axis or now it’s a manual knob on top of the projector and you are the motor.