Setting scanner speeds

[brinnswf]

Hello! first post, woot! I've been doing lighting for awhile, but I wanted to take a dip into the laser world, it's starting to feel more like a dive now but that's how it goes! lurking for awhile and love these forums, such a resource! But I have searched for this and can't info in the help documentation or these forums so I thought I would just make my own.

I've noticed with quickshow software, you can set the scanning speeds to a range of speeds. My projector (x-beam) scanners are rated at 15kpps. I've run them for a short amount of time at 20 and even 25 with no noticeable ill effect. Sure there is slight distortion, but since I am more interested in aerial effects I would take less flicker over less distortion. My question is, is this bad for the scanners? Will I burn them out or shorten their life dramatically by running them faster than rated?? Are there other settings one can change to compensate for running scanners faster than rated? Sorry if this has been addressed before and thanks so much!

[Picasso]

The smaller the scan angle the faster you can go. Thats about the main thing you can do easy via software to get "safer" speed from your scanners. You can also hear when your scanners are unhappy along with the distortion that you have reported. I've yet to burn out a pair of the china scanner pushing them to much. I've sure made them freak out a few times giving them raster!

[mixedgas]

The rule of thumb is "Does it Look Good?" unless your doing 3D graphics....
The wider the angle you use, the slower you have to scan.
This is the physics of of the scanner, specifically inertia.

So you pick the needed angle and push the speed up until you see distortion/overshoot, then you back off a bit, say 10%.
If you cant get the speed at that angle, you back off on the angle.

The math is too complex to place a real time speed solver in the scanner control software, so this becomes the "ART" part.

Steve

[aricha]

most of the arial effects in QS will look good with 15-18k pps
some looks worth with faster speed

[brinnswf]

Thanks for all the input! I sent a message to x-laser and he said the sweet spot would be around 20k, and that it should not be pushed past 25. I'll keep experimenting, once I have some aerial patterns worked out that I like I'll see how they look with different settings.