Just a simple write-up of my first build here. Nothing fancy, but a simple 445 projector I threw together from all of the bits I had scattered around and I was eager to get photons out of the aperture.
Shot of the projector from the front. The enclosure was cannibalized from a €40 LED fixture which expired its shelf life about 6 months ago. It has more than enough space for a simple satellite projector and it had some useful components that made it the perfect candidate for modification into a laser projector.
The back panel has some of the original connections, including the safety cable, power cord, fuse holder and XLR in/outputs. Instead of DMX, these were repurposed to serve as a 12VDC connection from a remote emergency stop, with a relay inside the projector controlling power to the laser.
There was enough vertical space inside to use a two-story layout. The optical deck sits on 4 standoffs which you can see here and the 12V and galvo power supplies underneath, together with the projector's wiring loom.
The optical deck itself is nothing specifically fancy, and could probably be built a little more efficient if I put some more time/effort in, but again, I wanted this to be a fairly clean and straightforward build which worked.
The projector itself consists of a simple 20K China scanner system and a dirt-cheap TTL 445nm module which is specified as 300mW on the sticker. Right now I have no need to crank the power up more, if I upgrade this unit, I'll probably switch over to an RGB system. The only reason I didn't do so already is because I didn't have any proper dichros or kinematic mounts on hand, and cramming an RGB beam table onto a 120x120mm square might be a bit of a tight squeeze.
Again, I didn't care about building this thing as efficiently or space-saving as I could, I just wanted it to work.
The projector all lined up and running.
Quick test to see if my graphics worked -- not perfect, as you can see (but then again, this is one insanely complex frame). The galvos need a bit of a tune, but I'm going to wait for that until I have a more sensible excuse for a DAC than just hard-wiring a sound card straight into the ILDA connector.
And of course, this thread isn't complete without the mandatory scanning beam shots!
This thing is going to be accompanied by a twin sister once I can free the budget for a second laser and scanning system, and eventually the main head will have a bigger beam table with ~1,5W (600mW 445, 600mW 635, 300mW 532) of balanced RGB and 30K scanners. The satellite systems will probably stay like this until I can get some decent base plates machined for them.