Scannermax 506s

[dnar]

Oh hell! It's the next Pangolin T-Shirt!!!

And MUST have "I am Laser Show Designer" on the back!

How about:

HAVE QUICKSHOW
AM LASER PRO

[Bradfo69]

How about:

HAVE QUICKSHOW
AM LASER PRO

Wayne, That was a bit of an inside joke that I knew Bill would get. They had an order of t-shirts made in a hurry last summer for a promotional event and there was a misprint saying "I am lasershow designer" rather than, "I am a lasershow designer." We got a bunch of them as freebies at SELEM.

But I like your creativity!

[kecked]

so mixed gas tell us more about the scanners.......PLEASE

[Pangolin]

Kecked, you too have done some interesting laser work over the years, including abstract shows. Just as we're discussing for Doc, if you've got some old 6800 amps, or '671 amp laying around, send them to me and I'll mod them and send them back to you along with a pair of our '506 scanners. The only trick will be the cables to fit into the connectors. The connectors are made by Tyco/Amp and ironically called "mini CT" connectors, so the wires can't be too big. I was fortunate that the cables for the amps Norty had used small-diameter wires (economy Chinese scanners) so they fit with no problem. But the wires were a bit of a challenge for cables Steve happened to have at his disposal...

Anyway, once you have the scanners then you (and hopefully The Doctor too) will also be able to contribute to this discussion.

Bill

[buffo]

I have been giving away and selling these lenses during LEM's since 2009 (the funny thing is no one wanted those lenses before Pangolin started marketing these)

For the record, I have been giving out solid 3 inch diameter -2.75 diopter plastic lenses to FLEM and SELEM attendees since late 2007. I bought about 60 of them from Allelectronics.com after Bill Benner showed us how to use a pair of eyeglasses to diverge the beam from a projector to make it safer. (And that was at the very first FLEM in early 2007.) Those plastic lenses cost me less than a dollar a piece, since allelectronics.com was closing them out. Sadly, they don't have any in stock anymore, but I still have a few of them lying around in my optics bin.

The point being - as you said above - that the whole idea of using lenses to make the beam from a projector safer is not new. It's been around for decades.

The unique thing that Bill came up with was the half-lens idea. (Well, and the related concept of a 3-axis adjustable mount to correct for aberrations.) And those lenses are WORLDS away from the cheap ones I got. Prior to that, everyone thought that you needed a full diameter lens with a complicated diopter shift in the middle (not unlike the "no-line" bifocal lenses for eyeglasses) in order to get the effect right. But after over a year of research, it turned out that the split lens design was superior (and cheaper). Jem can comment more on this effort (and on all the time and money that was spent), as he was directly involved in the development.

Adam

[-bart-]

The carrot lenses were also cut in half.

[Pangolin]

Thanks for the historical reference Adam! I was trying to think of when those FLEM meetings were, and when I did the demonstration with Daedel's glasses...

Having a plastic molder produce a round lens and then cut it in half would most definitely be cheaper. That much is obvious.

What took us a lot of time is "productizing" -- figuring out what the range of curvature is needed to satisfy the range of laserists and venus, figuring out what outside diameter (and shape) would be the most handy to use, producing documentation and videos showing how it works and how to use it, and like I said, producing something consistent and affordable.

Despite the fact that $100 USD sounds like a lot of money, I swear these things cost us around $60 USD to produce and ship. They're made out of an ultra-stable monomer plastic, with a super-hard anti-reflective coating on the front and back, and have a highly-polished top surface -- all of which is necessary to avoid interference (multiple reflections casting back into the projector and off of exit window glass) and power reduction on the laser-projected image.

It is indeed our intention to make this idea as affordable as possible to everyone, which is why we charge less than $30 for the mount. The mount actually has custom thumbscrews too (we had to have thousands made)...

Regarding Jem, he was indeed the savior for this project. I had the idea for years, but despite much effort, couldn't find anyone local who would work with me. Even local lens-crafter operations simply "play dumb" when you say "you've got to have generic lenses back there that could be cut to do what we want"... Once I discovered how Jem could help, progress on the project resumed. Still with all of the work needed to turn an idea into a real product, it took more than a full year before we were actually putting lenses into the hands of people...

And you're right Adam, the lens is not the whole story either. Some development was needed to figure out the best way to mount the lenses to avoid perturbations and such... It's obvious that you'd want to move the lens up and down to define the audience area. It's not obvious that left/right and the tilt would be so critical to a perfect projection... For what looks like a simple piece of plastic, there are a lot of tricks to making it work well...

Bill

[Jem]

Hi all

I was keeping a low profile on all this, however, I feel Bill should have the support he rightly deserves here.

Bill is actually been very conservative with the truth regarding what went into the development of these lenses, he is also being very humble playing his part in the development down to some degree. You wouldn't believe the amount of prototypes we had flying backwards and forwards for a hell of a long time before the final lens design was settled on.

Then we had to decide on the best refractive index for the material, the type of monomer resin, the type of multi anti reflection coating, the curvatures of the front and back surfaces, spherical design or aspherical design, highly polished edge, dull edge etc etc. Neither would you believe the detail regarding size shape etc., that we went into before settling on what is now the SafetyScan lens in its final form. Yes, it may look like a simple lens, but looks can be deceiving.

Believe me when I say the lenses are actually pretty damn cheap considering the R & D work that went into them and the bespoke design. They are not mass produced, in fact each individual lens is walked through our Lab on an individual basis to ensure accuracy at every stage of manufacture, with extra care taken to avoid even the most minute of scratches. There's even more, and I could go on, but you get the idea.

I don't intend to comment again here on this subject, but I hope the above information helps to give some understanding to what is actually a pretty complex subject. I've had PM's in the past with certain members who have been commenting about the price of the lenses, but i'll repeat it again... No one, I repeat No one is ever going to get rich from the sale of these lenses at the price they are. We have costs as a business, Bill has costs as a business, those costs need to be covered and the price of the product represents this. If you think they are too expensive you are welcome to go find your own solution as a hobbyist, but you'd better have a damn good and well equipped optical lab to produce lenses of the calibre that Bill sells.

The SafetyScan lens is a premium product, it's at the top of it's game, it's as good as you're going to get for this particular application. When you buy a set of SafetyScan lenses you are buying a product that has been very well researched, that provides the optimum material for the job, has highly efficient coatings and will work well for it's intended purpose. In fact it will do better than work well, it is as good as you can possibly get with current technology, plus you have the back up and technical expertise of Pangolin. How much better does it get?

Jem

[Pangolin]

I was keeping a low profile on all this, however, I feel Bill should have the support he rightly deserves here.

Thanks Jem!

Then we had to decide on the best refractive index for the material, the type of monomer resin, the type of multi anti reflection coating, the curvatures of the front and back surfaces, spherical design or aspherical design, highly polished edge, dull edge etc etc.

Hehe, I had forgotten about some of those details. But yes, all of those were in there. Plus a lot of traveling to LSDI to do large-scale testing, photographing of results, emailing back and forth...

The carrot lenses were also cut in half.

In chatting privately with some Dutch members about this over the past day or so, I definitely get the impression that McCarrot went through a similar analytical development process we went through. It is clear that he is a smart and creative guy! (Not that there was any question about that...)

With the length of time it took us to release a finished product (with all of the things that make something a finished product), I can see how Johan might come to believe that we got in fact got the idea from McCarrot. I can assure everyone that's not the case! To produce lenses like this have been a passive pursuit of mine for a long time, and folks like Greg Makhov and Patrick Murphy (both fellow ILDA Career Achievement Award winners) can attest to this as well. McCarrot had an ideal next-door neighbor to help him pull it off once he got the idea. I had Jem to help me -- and he brought all of his expertise with him too.

I think McCarrot's comments say it best: ... it will help the laser scene to make better and safer shows... so the laser market can be a more happy and safe place.

Bill

[dnar]

Wayne, That was a bit of an inside joke that I knew Bill would get. They had an order of t-shirts made in a hurry last summer for a promotional event and there was a misprint saying "I am lasershow designer" rather than, "I am a lasershow designer." We got a bunch of them as freebies at SELEM.

But I like your creativity!

Seeing this a thread built on honesty and due credit, I must admit that its not my original idea. I once spotted someone at a trade show wearing a T that had "Have Pro tools, am engineer" on the front... To quote Mr Con, I pissed my shit.