Scannermax 506s

[swamidog]

paypal sent.


"the myth of the killer ape is true"

OK, Today is scanner amp mod day here in lovely North Eastern Ohio

Orders I have payment for as of today..., vs serial number.

When I receive payment, your address goes into a microsoft office document, and your name goes on a sticker on the back of two amps(or more) with the serial number.

Payment Received:

Serial Number and Owner:

0. Roberts (1. Bench Pair)
1. Keefe 1 pair
2. Buggy 1 pair
3. and 4. Kumpula, 2 pairs
5. Salt 1 pair
6. Conlin 1Pair
7. Boettcher 1 Pair
8. Sanders 1 Pair
9,10 Planters 2 pairs (modded/shipped via Pango)
11. Absol. (assigned)
12.TAI
13.
14.

[absolom7691]

Payment sent. Thank you, Steve!

[Carl B]

I received my two sets of compact 506 scanners on Wednesday paired up to two versions of the DT40 amp.
As I ordered one set of scanners in oposite orientation to the other set for beam entrey for technical reasons if anyone wants to reverse the orientation of the scanners it's best to let Bill know when ordering as the coil pins need reversing in the cables for both galvos I think and the Y axis mirror needs rotating 180 when fitting to the galvo. Not really a job for an end user.

I have got round to fitting my scanners but other jobs in the projectors are preventing me photographing beams bouncing through them at the moment. Out of pure luck fitting the scanner block direct to the base plate puts the Y axis mirror bang centre with the output windows where as the DT's needed lifting plates.

When I get over to Rob's (Stanwax) place to finish my builds I will get some photo's of progress posted.

Carl

[discothefunkyhippo]

Paypal sent

[mixedgas]

For power and control signal connections, I heartily recommend the following kit for connecting to the amps.

It contains enough 2 pin connectors to do the job. Only tools needed are pliers and a soldering iron. I tack and reflow solder the crimped connections on small wires. It adds to the reliability if minimal solder is used in the right spot. You could skip the soldering and just crimp the connector with pliers.

Mouser stocks it. Molexkits.com stocks it. Others stock it. Its cheap and worth the time to use it. Cost is $3.00 per kit and shipping, and you need one for each axis.
Six dollars and shipping makes life beautiful and you can easily disconnect an amp for troubleshooting your cables.

Buy two kits per XY pair.

The amps use a 2.54 mm /0.1 inch header spacing, which is a Molex style KK.

Two connectors handle the ILDA in. Two more connectors cover the power leads. One spare is left for mistakes or for tapping off the feedback signal for scope monitoring or scanfail boards.

http://www.molexkits.com/76650-0089

I suggest 22 Gauge (American Size) stranded wire to all the fittings. Solid "telephone" wire need not apply and should not be used.

If you wish to solder directly to the board, that can be done as well.

For single ended inputs, a motherboard jumper can be used to ground one side of the differential input, as four pins are used for the control signal input. The signal connector has two ground pins in the center of the four pins. Adding a motherboard jumper grounds one of the differential inputs, allowing single ended use without soldering a second cable or looped cable.


ONE CAN ALSO USE TWO OF THE 4 CIRCUIT 76650-0090 KITS, but you loose the feedback /tuning test point unless you buy some 2 circuit kits.


Steve

[Banthai]

steve

you said .... "I have not transferred payment to my bank, that will occur as orders are shipped. This should avoid the syndrome that plagues a certain seller."

Firstly .... although im not purchasing from you ... i think that i can speak for all the "old timers" here on this forum that you are one of the most trustworthy and honest people here ... you certainly dont need to prove that buddy ... i think what you are doing for the guys here ( and for pangolin until they get there amps "out there" ) is absolutely fantastic ...
i dont post much but i have been following this thread and think that what you are doing is really helping the community ... i know you are just covering your cost and time (if that ) if there was a PL award for Excellence ... you should get it

Karl

[mixedgas]

I will roughly tune the Amps using my personal pair of scanners. This will put everybody else in the "Ballpark" or "Soccer Field" as far as tuning goes.

Attached is the EXCELLENT fine tuning scheme from a Laser Fantasy International (LFI) "PDD3" Scanner Amp manual. This was written by some of the major contributors to the ILDA test pattern. There is no way I could word it better. This explanation assumes the amps are already at a "course" tuning stage. Thus it is covering the circle and the square portion of the ILDA test pattern. Other then slight touchups to other controls, these steps should do the trick.

Exotic Modification Exclusion:
Before any one else feels deprived, please know that a few PLers are devoting their resources to contribute to more research and development of the 506. I'm not aware of the details. Thus a few of you out there have custom/experimental mirrors or improved high torque coils. If you have oddball, non-standard mirrors, your tuning may be more detailed or involved. With a coil change, you should still be very close as tuned before shipping. Please Consult with Mr. Benner if you have "Exotics" and are using the "RED / C605" amp.

Kudos to LFI for the excellent manual, if any of LFIs remaining principals are un-fond of its posting, let me know and I'll remove it. I could not find a copyright in the portion of the manual that came with my PDD3. Please Assume its (C)1995 or so LFI, and used here under the educational use clause.

Steve

[Carl B]

Well after having my 506's for nearly two weeks I finally have some photo's of them in action.



When Bill sent them out he did warn me that one of my DT40 amps had a twitchy Polyswicht / Polyfuse but that was an easy issue to fix by replacing the offender.
As you can see in the LM test pattern the output is perfect @ 30k although I have turned down the input gain a bit so that full output size from QS or LP fits the projector window. The input gain was maxed out when I received then and the performance was just as good.

As you can see in the second photo this set of scanners are set up for right hand beam entry.
As I mentioned in my last post it is not just a case of swapping round the scanner block and repositioning the galvos. Certainly for the X axis but I think also for the Y axis the wires for the coil need swapping round on the pins of the cable and if you take a look at this photo of my Y axis mirror
you can see that the top edge is longer than the bottom edge. To maintain this with left hand beam entry the opposite end of the mirror would need to be attached to the galvo. So this is something to keep in mind when placing your order and needing to swap round the beam entry.

My overall impression of these Compact 506 scanners is they are very impressive performers and will be setting new standard in the budget end of the market.

I hope this review sheds even more light on these scanners for you people lined up for buying amps from Steve and anyone else following this thread.

Carl

[mixedgas]

Briggs: Your pair is shipped to the Scaly Anteater's place per your request.

Steve

[Pangolin]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the review and I am glad that you've got everything integrated and working.

By the way, in case there are those who do not understand it, the curved appearance of the test pattern is natural distortion that happens and it is due to the way the X-Y mirror configuration works. You'll see that on all X-Y galvanometer configurations, and it gets more and more noticeable with very wide scan angles, as our scanners are capable of. (If you haven't noticed it up until now, you're not scanning as wide as some of us are ).

This geometric distortion is easily corrected by using the "pincushion" feature of geometric correction settings in the software (or at least, in our software )

Bill