Pangolin ? laser not perform at maximum

[rfourt]

Im sorry pango dudes, i know you are the best at what you do and in this bussiness you are the kings, and you really want us customers to bring this up in your own forum, but i have some concerns that i want to discouss here with members i trust and know have the same software and setup as i do. i dont know if im correct about this but here it goes..

For example.
I have a 1.7Watt Viasho Green with Analouge modulation 0-5Volt. normal.

Pangolin FB3 never Ever gives out 5Volt.. Maximum i have gotten is 4 and that was with about 10 Quicktargets beams at the same dot. wich you will never have time to do before a show. unless you only have one beammirror. :P

For a normal animation, lets say a tunnel in white color. I get about 3.2-3.7 Volt out on the modulation for R, G and B.

Dosnt this mean that my lasers dont run at Maximum? or am i wrong?

I have taken this up before as i see my Amps on my PSU for my Viasho and i have never seen it reach 6.7 wich is maximum when i run it manually. But with modulation and from Pangolin quickshow or LivePro it never seems to go over 4.0 Wich basicly means i dont run my laser at max. correct?

If this is the case.. i dont understand this.. why dosnt it put out the maximum.
Even if i make a normal Square with 255 green color i dont get out more then 3.2Volts for modulation.

ok i could probably open up my PSU from Viasho and on some pot change that 3.5 Volt should give me Maximum effect but i dont want to do that..as you can understand.

As i said im not sure im correct about this, so if im wrong please let me know. but from my testing and if i remember this has been discoussed before,.

---------------------------------------------

Another thing.. wich i dont understand, and perhaps has nothing todo with this.. but still makes me wonder..

If i make a tiny sqaure of green and my laser says it gets 3.2 on the PSU.
And then i make the Sqaure bigger it lowers the value on my PSU to example 2.0.

what is this?

Im used to set the laser output on the SP-265 Exciter and no concern of the power through the old Atari Software.

[badger1666]

de ja vue moment

how did you measure the voltage ? its no good using a multi meter because pango uses a 5v pulse modulation method on the fb3 and you have to use an oscope to measure it
there are a load of threads on this about this and the fb3 not giving full power out of your lasers,
thats why i dont have an fb3 ,it might be a good product and great software
but i works all wrong, if you draw a beam show with the software it does not come out very bright, somthing to do with pango's not so bright idea about power sharing across
all the beams so in order for example you want a full power tunnel displayed
you would have to draw three or four circles on top of each other to get it and then you would start to suffer a load of flickering, bill has his reasons for doing it like that
but i am just no fan of it, they should put in a software switch so you can run it there way or full power way and a least give you a choice after all your paying for it
if you display a fan for example you want it to be at full power unless you set it at a lower power,
kinda like buying a fast car and restricking it to 30kpm after all no point in building
a 1w rgb that is lucky to put out 200mw with an fb3 running it

sorry to ramble on

Im sorry pango dudes, i know you are the best at what you do and in this bussiness you are the kings, and you really want us customers to bring this up in your own forum, but i have some concerns that i want to discouss here with members i trust and know have the same software and setup as i do. i dont know if im correct about this but here it goes..

For example.
I have a 1.7Watt Viasho Green with Analouge modulation 0-5Volt. normal.

Pangolin FB3 never Ever gives out 5Volt.. Maximum i have gotten is 4 and that was with about 10 Quicktargets beams at the same dot. wich you will never have time to do before a show. unless you only have one beammirror. :P

For a normal animation, lets say a tunnel in white color. I get about 3.2-3.7 Volt out on the modulation for R, G and B.

Dosnt this mean that my lasers dont run at Maximum? or am i wrong?

I have taken this up before as i see my Amps on my PSU for my Viasho and i have never seen it reach 6.7 wich is maximum when i run it manually. But with modulation and from Pangolin quickshow or LivePro it never seems to go over 4.0 Wich basicly means i dont run my laser at max. correct?

If this is the case.. i dont understand this.. why dosnt it put out the maximum.
Even if i make a normal Square with 255 green color i dont get out more then 3.2Volts for modulation.

ok i could probably open up my PSU from Viasho and on some pot change that 3.5 Volt should give me Maximum effect but i dont want to do that..as you can understand.

As i said im not sure im correct about this, so if im wrong please let me know. but from my testing and if i remember this has been discoussed before,.

---------------------------------------------

Another thing.. wich i dont understand, and perhaps has nothing todo with this.. but still makes me wonder..

If i make a tiny sqaure of green and my laser says it gets 3.2 on the PSU.
And then i make the Sqaure bigger it lowers the value on my PSU to example 2.0.

what is this?

Im used to set the laser output on the SP-265 Exciter and no concern of the power through the old Atari Software.

[rfourt]

de ja vue moment

how did you measure the voltage ? its no good using a multi meter because pango uses a 5v pulse modulation method on the fb3 and you have to use an oscope to measure it
there are a load of threads on this about this and the fb3 not giving full power out of your lasers,
thats why i dont have an fb3 ,it might be a good product and great software
but i works all wrong, if you draw a beam show with the software it does not come out very bright, somthing to do with pango's not so bright idea about power sharing across
all the beams so in order for example you want a full power tunnel displayed
you would have to draw three or four circles on top of each other to get it and then you would start to suffer a load of flickering, bill has his reasons for doing it like that
but i am just no fan of it, they should put in a software switch so you can run it there way or full power way and a least give you a choice after all your paying for it
if you display a fan for example you want it to be at full power unless you set it at a lower power,
kinda like buying a fast car and restricking it to 30kpm after all no point in building
a 1w rgb that is lucky to put out 200mw with an fb3 running it

sorry to ramble on

they should put in a software switch so you can run it there way or full power way and a least give you a choice after all your paying for it
if you display a fan for example you want it to be at full power unless you set it at a lower power.

Excaclty.




is this really true?. i was hoping it was just me who didnt really know the software and that there where some setting i have missed. but i have suspected this from i guess day one i got the software and FB3.

This is crazy. but perhaps a good reason behind it, although i cant think of any. As you said.. if i buy a1.7watt laser i dont want my software to only let it put out 900mW. then i would have bought an 2.5Watt laser. or perhaps change to another software.

Bill has been really helpfull to me when i agnolidge the Quicktargets beams not putting out even close to maximum and set me up with a nice Beta Version that fixed that problem to about 80%. but still i would have to place about 2-3 Target beams at the same spot to reach maximum.

Ok.. so my suspicion where correct.. Anybody else who can confirm.?

Another question that is relevant here then:

Does "Mamba", "phoenix" work the same way?
Or do they let you use the full potential of you hard earned cash and use your full laser power that you bought.

[Lasermad]

Interesting to read this guys , for me it really is surprising for me , although i do remember reading another thread about this some time back , did not realise the problem was so inherant and deep in the FB3 , i thought it was a quirk after reading last thread about 6 months ago.

Heres my problem , (Sorry I dont have an OS) , I have tried .... mamba & alphalite and Ishow and the millisecond i plugged FB3 in , things just became BRIGHTER ! and smoother...i would say brightness doubled !

I know this flys against whats being said here , but its my experience so I have replied here as i want to watch replies etc.

paul

[Things]

What are you using to measure the voltage? As was mentioned before, a regular voltmeter/DMM will not display the correct voltages. I believe even when it's just a single dot, the laser is still being modulated. The modulation is waaayyy too fast to show up on a DMM.

[carlos3621]

ive dealt with this issue myself,
have you sent an email to bill @ pangolin ?

I have, and the issue was corrected.

[gottaluvlasers]

Also, which version of QuickShow are you using? In the newer builds (Which build do you have?) you can adjust the output beam targets to 100%.

This does not address some of your other concerns, i know, but it can help with your targeting.

I would also encourage you to send Bill a message with your concerns. Its great to get opinions and others experiences here, but you should mirror this with direct contact to Pangolin also.

Do you have an O-scope?

-Marc

[badger1666]

@carlos
please do tell how yours was fixed?

@marc
yes they may have well fixed the issue for beam targets
but what about general use?
Its a complete pain having to layer beams on. Top of each other so you can make a full power beam show and if you for example draw 3 circles on each other to get a hi power tunnel you start getting a load of flickering

@rfourt
I don't get the problems with mamba or lds the only problem with mamba is the software keeps crashing

@lasermad
I can't see how the brightness of your lasers would have doubled with. An fb3 over the alphalite. Alphalite is a ttl dac, full power all the time,
it was a great dac shame it wasn't analog

[araugh]

Not that this is much help, but this a problem with phoenix live as well. I've used them both pretty heavily and have been unable to get full power out of my projectors using these software packages. The interesting bit is that hardware test in phoenix puts out full power, but obviously on as a static beam.

[gottaluvlasers]

i am in no way going to explain this properly, im sure one of the other more advanced technical minds will jump in and explain this better-

When a laser draws a circle or square or *anything*, you need to recognize what its really doing. What we see as a circle for example, is actually 5-10 or 20 or more spearate points that our eyes and brain put together to see as a single solid drawing.

So, that laser is in essence, is just "blinking" on and off at given intervals of time to plot those 10 or so dots to draw what we see as as a circle. Now, given the time it takes to draw each of those points, the laser may not have time to get back up to full power again to draw the next "dot." Again, please realize i am *DEF* not explaining this 100% technically properly. i fully dont understand the phenomenon also. but i think it all boils down to the amount of time the software tells the laser to be "on" and how long the laser has to repsond to that request.

As far as the beams, in my build of Q.S. you do not need to layer beams to get a full power beam. You simply move the slider to 100% and you get a full power beam. Although, i have not put an o-scope on the outputs to see if it is indeed a full 5V output. Which build of Q.S. do you have?

-Marc