Questions about a JHE beam table laser projector.

[m2b]

Well, a bargain isn't a bargain if it causes problems. I'll stick with the power supplies you recommended.

I will now accumulate parts and build. I'm sure I will have more questions but for now THANK YOU for all of your great information and advice.

[m2b]

If you ever need to record shows, you can possibly DC mod the ADAT (If its not already modded) and skip the encoder/decoder. This has far better results then using a noisy encoder. Which ADAT model do you have? Some can't be modded....

Steve

I'm using a second generation of the original "blackface" machine. Probably from the mid 90's.

[SpitzSTP]

I'm using a second generation of the original "blackface" machine. Probably from the mid 90's.

Here is a picture of them.

[mixedgas]

Takes me about a hour to mod one of those. Basically jumpering out 24 or so caps,

I'll take a pic soon so you can know where to look for the mod jumpers.

Steve

[m2b]

Thank You Steve.

I have been ordering parts, should take about a week to get them in.

[m2b]

Here is a picture of them.

Mr. SpitzSTP is one of the greatest guys in the world. Not only instrumental in getting me my planetarium projector, but finding all kinds of extra "good junk" with which to play. He even got me hooked on lasers by giving me the parts for a JHE planetarium laser system.

Three cheers for Mr. Spitz

[DZ]

Here's the manual for modifying a blackface adat: http://www.pangolin.com/_Files/ADAT_...ing_Manual.pdf

I would like to recommend getting the show tapes transfered to a hard drive though. ADATs were fantastic back in the day, but the day that the ADAT eats the last copy of a tape you'll hate them too! When on a disk drive, with just a few clicks I can have multiple copies on several disk drives or memory stick. I recently picked up an Echo Layla so I can play shows directly from my PC, James was kind enough to show me which caps needed to be bypassed and the thing works great.

If you want to stick with ADAT, the best thing would be to modify one blackface, record the output of the 2nd ADAT via the FM Decoder, then you can just play straight from the DC modified ADAT and ditch the FM Decoder.

If you ever get any video of the shows I'd love to see some of them again. It's been years since I've seen a JHE show. I used to run them in a 60' planetarium. The HeNe rig just wasn't bright enough for the theater so we used a Spectra Physics 124 HeNe for red and a 60X argon for green. The shows were pretty simple, but when we added the star projector along with about 100 slide and special effects projectors it looked awesome! Damn, those were the days!

[m2b]

Thanks DZ for the link. The information will prove very useful.

I am building a 30 foot dome for my planetarium (couldn't afford more for a number of reasons) and call me "nuts" but it's just a dream I just have to do. So many things have fallen into place for me that I know it was meant to be. I had never thought of adding any laser type show until Mr. Spitz again showered me with boxes of "good junk" and thus a new dimension will be added to the dream. To borrow from a slogan, "This is your fathers (grandfathers) planetarium" it will look and feel a lot more like a 60's era presentation, but I agree with you.....Damn, those WERE the days!!!

I have worked with the ADAT a lot in the recording and film industry and I understand what you mean. Backups of the backups was always the order of the day. I will protect and copy these tapes. I have already done substantial cleaning of the transport (both rubber parts and heads) as they did not work well at all to start with.

If indeed I can get all of this working I would be happy to make a DVD of the presintations.

[m2b]

It has been a while since I have posted on these fine pages, almost three years in fact, but it has been time well spent. I finished building my planetarium and had a grand opening in June of 2014. In the past year I have been presenting shows and tinkering together other projectors and have seen over 650 people at my various monthly shows. If anyone is interested in seeing my dome show and is ever in the far north Phoenix area please come. I have an e-mail list that I send out info about the new months show and if anyone would like to be on it just send me your e-mail at thestarbarn@gmail.com and I will add you to it.

I now actually have had some time to get back and tackle this JHE laser projector. I have put together the power supplies, traced the wiring and went to the “one stop laser shop” and got what I thought I needed. Ok, ok, I have met my match. Either that or I just don't have the patience that I once had. I have managed to get it to work a little at least. I do get the red and green dots out and almost together. I think I will need to machine another part to do that. My big problem is that I'm guessing about most of what I'm doing and probably not guessing well. I know that the blanking circuits are not working at all (one of the G-120 mirror drivers tends to get very warm and I actually pulled the fuse on that board so I don't kill it). But the other one doesn’t appear to be working either.

I'm not even sure at all if I'm sending the proper tracks to the proper driver boards. I have actually sent out the four control tracks to every combination of driver boards and the operation appears somewhat the same. There are a bunch of ten turn pots in the system but I really don't want to turn them for fear of making matters worse. Actually I probably can’t make them much worse.

I have managed to get movement out of both colors but I also have solid vertical lines that very in height off to the right while I have an interesting square off to the left, that actual curls generate from (very dimly). I'm fairly sure that the bright color dots are because the blanking flags are not working right but I have no idea where the problem lies. I have shown the results so far to a few people and they thought the results were great but I almost gag on viewing them. I need HELP from someone who actually understands this stuff and can tell me what I need to do or what to look for. I would love to just have someone just fix it but I really doubt I could afford that option. Then there is also the question, is it worth fixing. If fixed how long would the unit work? I would have a unit with two rather old lasers (70’s vintage) in the 2 millawatt range that would probably burn out sooner rather then latter. The green one takes up to a minute to even light. Part of me doesn't want to throw good money after bad. I have well over $100 (probably $200) (and I know that's not much when you guys talk lasers) now in the power supplies and other replacement laser parts and will need more machine shop work just to get the two dots directly aligned. Also once the laser dots get moving they get really dim. At this point I can re-purpose the power supplies and not call it a total loss or I can keep playing and try and get it working. Part of me says just get a bunch of the AmericanDJ Micro projectors and call it. Then use this old system with the old mirror on a speaker trick to get some actual music timing. It is interesting that from what I do have working there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between patterns and the sound output anyway.

I had even thought about building a unit from scratch that would perhaps operate from the que’s on these tapes but I’m not at all sure if it’s a project that I can tackle without a lot of help.

The cost of any commercial unit is well out of my ball park which is why I was thinking about the AmericanDJ Micro units. They use a 30 millawatt laser so I would assume would be a lot brighter and they make four different types with different patterns for about $80 each. With three or four of these it might look decent.

Any comments as to my direction would be appreciated.