Cannot get laser to project image using Quickshow

[MarkMark]

Hi everyone,

I am completely new to this so apologies for any low level questions or something obvious I may have missed.
I just purchased and have installed Quickshow on my PC and that seems fine. When I connected my single colour 12k laser (following instructions exactly), I cannot get any images outputting through the laser. I have clicked the "enable output" button and the light on the FB3 flashes slowly red. According to the manual, this either means online but output inactive. According to the manual, this means either

no cues selected (I have selected cues and they display in top right window) or
dummy stream. (I don't know what that means)

My laser works fine via DMX or automatic mode and the ILDA light is on (assuming this means that it recognises the cable joined to the laser) but no output when connected via ILDA cable.

I have tried adjusting scanning speeds to no avail. Was going to work through the test patterns, but can't yet without output.

Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

[gottaluvlasers]

did you go through the automated setup for Quickshow? make sure QS is set to single color. QS may be trying to output a multi- color frame on your red and/or blue color channels. While your laser is obviously only wired for green channel.

[MarkMark]

Thanks so much for such a quick reply. I did go through the automated setup process and definitely set it up for beginner level, lowest level scanning quality lase and 1 colour. I was however thinking that it may be one of 2 things.
I need to check the drivers I used from the QS DVD. It needs to be 32 bit, can't remember if I clicked on 64 bit folder or not. (unlikely solution)

I noticed on the back of my projector that one of the screw connectors for the ILDA cable is slightly damaged. Will play around with it in the morning to make sure the full 25 pin connection was fine. If no good, I'll come back here and see if any other thoughts.

[White-Light]

If the lights on the FB3 are showing an error then its more likely to be a problem with the software / driver setup as the FB3 is quite intelligent when it comes to self diagnosis.

From memory, the FB3 should show constant green when connected to the PC. Constant amber when the software is started and fast flashing red (about 2 per second) when the laser output is enabled.

If you're seeing a slow red flash with it connected then you need to investigate the set up.

BTW to eliminate the ILDA cable - detach it!

My FB3 flashes fast red when output is enabled even with no laser or ILDA cable connected so if you remove the cable and still get a slow flashing red (suggest you disconnect the FB3 after removing the cable and then reconnect and restart QS to be sure you've cleared any existing state - shouldn't be necessary but belt and braces...), then you know its either the FB3 itself (possible but highly unlikely as they are very reliable) or the install. If you get a fast flashing red with no cable then that suggests the FB3 / set up is fine and its the cable or laser's ilda input port.

I can't remember if the FB3 detects cable faults downstream so best to test this as above.

Also try a different USB port on the PC just to eliminate that.

It is possible to have diffulties installing the drivers on Windows 7 systems especially so if any doubt, try removing the drivers, re-booting and then re-installing the drivers - do NOT allow windows to install the drivers automatically. Stop it via the dialogue box if it tries to do this then install then manually.

[Shawnb]

Have you looked inside your projector yet? i have seen Chinese lasers with ILDA connections but they wer not connected inside or connected to the wrong pins worth a look

[MarkMark]

Thanks everyone for all of your help. I problem solved as suggested above to no avail, and even contacted a local laser company for advice. Then in the middle of the night it hit me. Before I bought the software, I was running the demo version to check it out. When I received my paid version, I uninstalled the demo version (or so I thought). Apparently windows did not remove the demo licence key. I thought this might be the issue when the main page had my FB3 at the bottom, along with 2 demo projectors. So after completely removing the C/QS Folder with the demo key, and reinstalling the purchased version, everything is up and running. Hopefully my experience might save some time for the next newbie who runs into this situation. What I can say is that the whole system is great and as a result of contacting the local laser company have connected with a guy running serious entertainment industry shows (I mean 30W lasers that according to him, could cut through gyprock in about a second). So thanks everyone again - a great forum for help.

[White-Light]

Unusual. Must have been a conflict as from memory the demo version now has a pop up window when you press "Enable Laser Output" that tells you its a demo version and cannot output a beam.

I wouldn't have expected the Fb3 to indicate an error. Obviously sounds like a driver / licensing conflict.

[Things]

I think the FB3 expects to be initialized by its drivers as soon as it's plugged in, having the demo version probably had the drivers disabled or not installed at all.

[JRGixxerfreaK1]

From my experience with quickshow is that with you will get full RGB signal with the single green setup on the software , just the RGB signal wont separate , they all modulate together , so if you connect to any colour channel , you should get this thing to work . but if you have it set it as a RGB on the software then it will modulate RGB separately according to the colour of the pattern ,