I Need A Little Extra Power This Weekend

[jaycey]

I have been asked to do a little show this weekend which unfortunately is outdoors.

Its a small (25mtrs X 25mtrs) Canal Basin, high walled on 2 sides & a posh apartment block on 1 side.

The party goers will be on pontoons with a high wall backdrop.

I can position my self on a canal boat with the laser pointing towards/above them & the walled backdrop 15-20 mtrs away with 3-4mtrs of height available to me.

Now the problem...

My laser (RGB) was measured at the last LEM at around 500mw total combined at aperture

Good news is I am running my 445nm driver at only 300ma.

Now they wont be to fussy about colour, so I was thinking of ramping the 445nm driver right up to 1000-1100ma

I have very good heatsinking and ventilation on the diode/P3 driver & projector.

It will get very dark there (no smoke), do you think the blue will cut it if I stick to beams or just cut my losses and stick with rear projections?

Can I put a meter on the 445/P3 and turn it up with the diode connected and running?

Cheers

[Jem]

It will get very dark there (no smoke)...

That's going to be your downfall. you need smoke/haze for anything with beams , especially outdoors.

You might be better sticking to graphics unless you can introduce some haze into the air.

Cheers

Jem

[kl79]

sure..no haze, no laser, event if you power up your 445.

445 is beautifull on haze..the smoke reveal the beauty of those diodes !

go for graphic

[White-Light]

Yup lots of smoke or its graphics only.

Laser beams are all but invisible without haze or dust particles in the atmosphere to reflect off.

May be time to invest in a hazer.

Also, 500mw total power is really low for outdoors.

This 550mw 650nm and 120mw 532nm INDOORS at a well hazed UK LEM:



The red is barely visible and the green loses visibility very fast off the viewing position - straight at you it appears bright but more than around 45 degrees away and even the green looks quite subdued. Makes you realise what you're up against.

[allthatwhichis]

I used my 1W Kvant at a party on the 4th of July and could only do graphics because of no fogger and the fireworks smoke didn't come inside the screened in pool enclosure.

[jaycey]

Thanks for all the replies fellas,

There are some good back drops there to project graphics onto so it wont be a total waste of time.


Now if I could get all the boats to stoke up their wood burning stoves I would get some smoke....

Cheers

[White-Light]

Or you could just buy a large smoke machine.

[ShortyInCanada]

"Now if I could get all the boats to stoke up their wood burning stoves I would get some smoke...."

My first posting here at PL...
Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it, too.

I'm terribly sorry.
But I just couldn't resist.

[jaycey]

*REPORT*

Just thought I would let you know how it went.....Brilliant!

I cranked the 445 power right up, set QS up as a single colour projector which in turn modulated all 3 lasers at the same time.
The small amount of Red & Green together with over powered blue gave it a colour very similar to 473, it was a nice bright blue.

As it got dark I was using the Hot Beams & Fans cue pages, editing/tweaking on the fly and even without smoke it was very impressive.
There was quite alot of ambient lighting around the pontoons but as the night rolled on they turned this off, upped the tempo of the music and the punters started rocking...yeahhh!

Synced to the music I got some good jumping/strobing fans going just over head height occaisionaly switching the projector back to RGB mode and isolating the green which was making a good account of its self without smoke

I was glad I didnt have to rely on graphics alone, the projector really held its own against all the odds & didn't miss a beat all night.

Great Party!

I will try and find someone who done some photos/video

[hobbybob]

Hey that's excellent Jaycey, good it worked out so well !
See you the next LEM in September ?