Laser Electronics Ltd

[sy247]

I am considering purchasing a Laser Electronics 3W DPSS green laser and Zion control control software. It will mainly be used for indoor events up to 1500 capacity. I would like to do a mixture of beam effects and animation.

Does anyone have experience of this control software and how it compares to Pangolin? It has an AVI converter which sounds pretty cool.

Thanks

[flecom]

soooo, I will go ahead and ask first... where in the world are you?

[Carl B]

Hi sy247

I'm assuming you are in the UK and if I'm right how about filling in your location details down to your county as you may be local to other PL users.

WRT the projector and software I think they are OK to use but you may want to have a look at www.stanwaxlaser.co.uk. Stanwax (Rob) is a member of PL and the build quality of his Shoe box size projectors is awesome with powers going up to 1W Green and up to 3W in a slightly larger case.
He also sells the Pangolin FB3 Quick show package which I think is better than the Zion software. The after sale's support from both Stanwax Lasers and Pangolin is about the best you can get.

Rob Is on holiday until the weekend but I would have a look at his site for pricing before jumping in and buying anything.

Carl

[sy247]

Thanks for the link Carl. I will get in contact with Rob and see what he can do. I am only starting out with lasers and am not planning on jumping in and buying anything until I've done a lot more research and had some demonstrations of different systems.

What is it that you prefer about Pangolin over Zion? Is it functionality or ease of use? I have been following the thread on Pangolin with interest about having to create layers with certain effects to achieve full power.

[Carl B]

If you are only starting out and really want to work out all your options, my first suggestion is to try and get over to the next Laser meet on the 1st weekend of October at Surfleet, just north of Spalding which is not to far from you. A visit to a meet means you will learn more about lasers in one day than a months worth of reading this board. Rob will be there and my self plus most of the UK members of PL with lots of Lasers running. A great opportunity to ask all the questions you want.

As for Zion V's Pangolin, my only encounter with the Zion software was when Clive from Laser Electronics came over to Preston and do a show along side me. I never got to use it but did pay quite a bit of attention to Clive operating it. From what I can remember the Zion software is only for Live shows were as Pangolin's Quick Show is a complete package for doing live shows and time line shows to music. Pangolin are also about to release v.2 of QS that addresses a lot of issues with brightness.

Like me, Rob is using Pangolin's FB3 to run his two 1W shoe box greens he uses for shows and is not having issues with brightness. I run Live Pro on my FB3 and am having a small issue with brightness with a green in one of my RGB's when modulated but this is down to the tuning of the lasers TEC's and not the software. The green in the other RGB runs great.

I hope this is of help.

Carl

[sy247]

Thanks very much for your post Carl and the invite to the Laser meet. I will be there for sure. I've got a friend in Boston so I will pop in and see him on the way back. I have had a good look at Pangolin FB3 and LiveShow and I can see it is a very powerful piece of software that is obviously designed for live performances and would really suit the sort of dance type events I would be doing. I was wondering whether Zion had the ability to configure a show to a time line and also the beat sync functionality that is in Livepro. It seems most of you guys are using Pangolin so in terms learning from the forums and other users it would seem like the best choice. I will get in touch with Rob and also probably visit Clive at Laser Electronics and have a look at the options. It will be good to meet you all in October. Thanks, Simon

[Carl B]

It's always good to see new faces at the meets so I look forward to catching up with you.

You do realise that this hobby / business is very addictive and if you start out with a green laser you will soon be wanting an RGB.

Carl

[sy247]

It's funny you should mention that... I was thinking instead of getting a 3W green laser maybe I should get two lower power units. Maybe green and blue for instance. Then I thought, maybe I should get a RGB. Then I thought actually I don't really know what I want I am sure I will have a much better idea after the Laser meet.

What I do know is that when I used to go to a lot of raves and clubs a fair few years ago now I used to be absolutely enthralled by the lasers, when there was a really good display. I used to just stand there watching them wondering how it was all done and really wanting to know about the equipment. And of course the best thing was being scanned, it is like being transported to another universe.

I am an IT consultant and have got a technical background so that side of the hobby really appeals and the thought of being able to produce some shows hopefully one day up to the standard of some of the amazing stuff I see on YouTube these days is really inspirational to me. I think some of the displays that are not dance events but choreographed to music are really works of art.

[Carl B]

Talking of shows synced to music, here is a show i did with the current official 1st version of Pangolin Quick Show. Bear in mind that the show time line is the weak point of this version of QS that is to be greatly improved in version 2. This show took me about 3-4 hours to put together and all of the effects are from the included cue's within QS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D82sWoMnS3o

Carl