I wasn't happy with having to tweak a soundcard every time I wanted to play with my laser display so I built my own USB dac. I call it the Lasershark.
My objectives were:
- Fill the void for a lower cost dedicated USB DAC aimed at folks who may only want to use one laser (Setup actually supports two lasers)
- Have 12bit resolution for all channels (differently x,y.. single-sides laser a, b)
- Make connecting it to commonly found chinese galvos easy (has 3-pin polarized header on the board.. no need for an ILDA connector breakout.)
- User programmable (You don't need a programmer to program this!)
The specs, code, etc can be found here:
http://macpod.net/electronics/lasershark/lasershark.php
As-is it works with OpenLase. There's no reason it couldn't work with other software (e.g. laserboy)
I still have some documentation to do. Afterwards I intend to make a low cost USB dac for a RG[B/V] setup .. perhaps not immediately, a few other fun projects have sprung into my mind
I don't really know anything about lasershows. Let me know what you think, what you would have done differently with this board, and what features you think are needed for an RGB DAC. Can't say everything will get included, but if I don't know about something (i.e. I just saw a video today where the person could focus/unfocus the beam.. that's a feature I never would have thought about) I can't think it over.
Edit: Oh yea, I forgot that I'm thinking of doing a group order of these if folks are interested (hope I'm not violating any forum rules by saying that here..).
Also, I don't normally hop on here so if you are interested in one, head to my website and shoot me an email.