Bye bye Spencer, hello... China?

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Okay, well for those of you who remember my obsession with the Spencer laser, I have kinda given up... I can't get the purple laser to align and I dont really want to risk disassembling the unit; as it stands it's not working very well lately... It could be 5 minutes in or an hour into the "show," but eventually I get this kinda high pitched whine noise and the image lines kinda look wavy... So the laser is probably on it's way out, which means I man go ahead and take it back to Spencers and exchange it for a new one. That being said, I did hate having to unscrew the back of the unit every time I wanted to swap out SD cards...

So here is where I'm at. I have been looking and looking all over the net for a RGB laser that has SD card support... I need the laser machine to be able to read cards. I DON'T want to have to connect the machine to a computer, dongle, card or anything else... There aren't a TON of them out there, however one model I saw seems to be ONLY made in China... The other two I may look into but here's the one I saw that I thought would be cool. And no, I'm NOT going to order them from DHGate, Chinavasion, China Express or any other Chinese place; I've read way too many horror stories about those companies to trust me $300 bucks to... There's an Ebay seller here in the States that has this, and I'm gonna go through ebay... Anyway, I hope someone might have some insight into how good this might be; I just want to project some .ild files that I have collected (by the tons it seems). Still gonna learn the laserboy software and try making my own images; right now the next issue of my music magazine is due out by November's end and the now biweekly radio show are taking up my time...

Here's the link. Maybe someone else has found more info on this one, but I can't find any reviews anywhere except for one what looks like Italian or Spanish review I cant make heads or tails out of. If only the Chinese make it, maybe it's decent?


http://www.ebay.com/itm/350mW-RGB-La...item27d235abb2

It's kinda funny, but some of the animations I was afraid of losing forever with the Spencer laser (older model), it looks like this unit has some of them pre-programmed! Hopefully they're on an SD card (they include one with the unit) and I can grab them off of there... I just wanna have some input before I plunk down $300. The unit looks pretty nice, even has a key! (Key? What for?) Nice digital display and a sound control!! Something the Spencer laser desperately needed (since I never could find the potentiometer inside the unit to control the sensitivity of the microphone.

Finally, the ebay seller seems to have perfect feedback, AND I see he's already sold a few of these this year, with no complaints...

[Galvonaut]

My advice would be to avoid this like the plague.

You do tend to get what you pay for. If you look at the projected image on that page, none of the lasers align to the extent that I think the white patches in the picture is an accident caused by the wildly unstable galvos.

If you have given up on your current laser due to low quality, purchasing this would probably be a mistake.

Have you considered building your own if you are on a budget or maybe modifying a higher spec laser with an SD card reader and show card?

Keith

[-bart-]

What about a RIYA dac with sd-player ?
Im not sure what features it has. Or if it has audio controlled playback.

But it will remain its value more than china crap.
If you get the hang of it,you could buy a lsx licence later on.

[m0f]

Goldenstar can make you one, of reasonably good quality with an SD reader. I recommend talking to Winni. Ebay tends to be the lowest of quality, with sellers who don't know anything about lasers re-selling what they can get cheap. Goldenstar builds some reasonably nice higher end lasers but also has some low cost models, and I know for sure they have a dmx board available with sd reader. A RIYA would be nice, but I have a feeling from your post that the costs of a laser and riya dac would be out of the range of what you want to spend.

As is always, quality costs money. Lower cost usually means lower quality. At least with Goldenstar you'll get an honest recommendation from someone who knows it's limitations, and pricing that's generally far lower than ebay. However there's a certain limit to how cheap a laser they will build simply because they won't carry the ultra crap parts. Even if you do end up needing to spend a bit more, at least you'll get way more for your money.

Email Winni at goldenstarwinni@hotmail.com for a price list. And ask about getting an sd reader installed. I deal with Goldenstar a lot for my parts, and I'm always shocked when I check out ebay and see the same thing for double the price..

[Galvonaut]

Seconded m0f's recommendation for Goldenstar. I've seen the build and beam quality and of one of their lasers and it looked really good and no comparison to the one in the link you shared.

It is going to cost more but it'll be well worth it.

[mixedgas]

I have the RIYA micro. I have one show on SD, called the "TEST PATTERN SHOW". It has ILDA and LM test patterns and a few animations in a loop, so I can evaluate scanner tuning. It works fine.
Two buttons, one advances forward through directories on the card, the other advances through ILDA files. So you can have multiple shows.
Graphics quality is very solid.

Steve

[VibrationsOfDoom]

It's not "low quality" picture wise that I somewhat "gave up" on the Spencer... I was fine with what the Spencer laser was displaying (well, except for the fact that the purple laser didn't line up, and the unit seems to be dying anyway). The new one is kind of a crapshoot, since I've heard it's really picky about SD cards... That and I'm tired of having to unscrew the damn thing every time I want to change cards... The Spencer models ALSO seem to have a limit of how many files they will allow you to program on one card; last time I think it was 25 files... adding a 26th file to the card's "program" file caused the unit to just sit there blankly...

Building my own is out of the question as I know nothing about lasers or electronics enough to do anything useful with said parts... It's just something for the bedroom anyway, I don't really NEED an expensive system, just one that will last... I'll contact goldenstar anyway but they're more than likely gonna be out of my price range...

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Yeah, M0f I see what you mean... Went to Goldenstar's page (see, I know's how ta use da interwebs! lol) and saw the first set of RGB models, with price tags like $1,200 and $2400 I said forget this... Then I searched a little more, came up with this thing...

http://www.goldenstarlaser.com/srgb1500-p-466.html

It seems to be a smaller version than those freakin' "car batteries" they offer... This isn't much more than what the ebay seller was offering for one of these... Still, after factoring in adding SD card support and shipping, who knows how much more this would be... Don't see a whole lot more about it, though it was interesting that the blue laser is 1000mw, which still is seemingly more power than the red and green laser (though, still, once again I don't know much about what this means). And I'm not putting down the "car batteries" (sorry, but that's what those big ass lasers they sell look like...) I'm sure they're way more powerful a unit than I need...

The funny thing; Goldenstar is seemingly a Chinese company... What, do American companies have no interest in making lasers? Even the Spencer model, as cool as it is, was no doubt assembled or even manufactured in China! I'm guessing the extremely high pricing is what keeps the Americans from doing much with those... It's literally going to take revolutionary pricing to bring these into more people's homes, and with the economy in the shape that it's in, is it really no surprise people like us are turning to China?

[White-Light]

The Spencer models ALSO seem to have a limit of how many files they will allow you to program on one card; last time I think it was 25 files... adding a 26th file to the card's "program" file caused the unit to just sit there blankly...

That's one of the limitations of using SD and why people tend towards a separate DAC and software. Apart from all of the additional control you get, on a PC the limitation is usually the hard drive size and memory when it comes to displaying shows or cues. The problem with a built in SD, apart from the show creation and control issues, is that you only have a certain amount of space available on the SD and a certain amount of system memory vailable to run it. Exceed either and you'll hit the buffers.

I too would recommend Goldenstar. It can't be emphsised enough that you get what you pay for in this hobby. However, there are one or two manufacturers who make small cheap lasers as well as expensive ones and whilst some limitations still exist, you do get better quality for your money within the limitations of what can be provided for the price. Goldenstar are one of those manufacturers.

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Wow, they estimated $167 to ship it? And didn't even give me the options, just said $167 (best way?) For who? Them? Eff that! I mean, I know 25 pounds is heavy but damn really? Who do they ship with a private plane?!??