Yet another Newie looking for Laser Advice

[UKEventLighting]

Hi All

New to this forum, yet another newbie !!

I need to advice, I run a small events company in the UK and I’m looking at purchasing a laser. I have to be honest this is more of a toy for me cos lasers are so cool, but am looking at offering this as a service.

Due to most venue not allowing haze it would be for more animations than air effects. I don’t want some to big as most the venue I will be working in are hotels and wedding venues that hold around 200 people.
I have been testing the demo version of QuickShow, and apart from a few quirks I’m very impressed with it and feel this will do the job.

Now I need to find a Laser, I was looking at either LaserWorlds CS-1000RGB SE or CS-2000RGB SE, the problem is I have found lots of people slating LaserWorld, however these were posts from as far back as 2006, so what are the CS-1000RGB SE and CS-2000RGB SE really like?

If they are as bad as everyone says what is a good alterative in the £1000-1500 GBP area that I can purchase in the UK. I realise that not a big budget, but I don’t want to go mad on something that may not get used that often

I have been reading up on laser power, wave length etc and it’s a bit like drinking from a fire hose, so if I wanted to project animations across a room say up to 20m away and I want it to be visible what sort of spec should I be looking at?

Just a quick tech question, ILDA cable, am I right in saying this a standard 25way D Pin to Pin? The reason I ask if you look for a ILDA cable they seem to be a lot more than a standard 25Way D and if they are just a standard cable why when they put ILDA in front of it the price go up so much !

Thanks in advance

Brian

[Stiffler]

Welcome to the forum!

My first piece of advice is to stay away from Laserworld.

[steve-o]

Welcome to PL Brian! If you need to go inexpensive (Chinese) type equipment, a lot of folks here like Goldenstar Laser. Wiinni is a member here. I'm sure someone here will chime in as to the pinout of an ILDA cable. I dont have one handy at the moment .. A quick google search should turn up something too . Also be careful with lasers as they can cause permanent eye damage in less than a blink of an eye, especially at the powers easily available these days. And, depending on your location, rules and legalities do apply to laser shows.. don't want to get fined or get in trouble with the law, you know ? ;]
Cheers and have fun !

[steviobee]

Hey Brian,

Welcome,

I am from the UK myself, except i now reside in Sydney. I went through a similar process though and looked into Laserworld last year, the thing with them is they have their own rules and specs so you can't really compare them to anything else, but suffice to say you will get a lot more for your money from other manufacturers, especially if you are looking at those two, CS (club series) models, they are really not very good! (I'm sure others will chirp in and suggest that is an understatement!)

I bought from Goldenstar and if I wasn't now so far away I would say you would be welcome to come and test it for your needs. I am very pleased with it and although it has it's faults, it is a good unit for the money and the company are great and easy to deal with. I bought a N-RGB3000A with DT40 pro scanners (wobbly XY mirrors that make the patterns ) the faster the scanners the better, but don't believe Laserworld's claims of 60k scanners!

It may be worth looking at Kvant or it is worth asking Rob @ Stanwax (on here) to see what he can offer you?

Maybe you also might like to build one yourself, there are tonnes of people on here with lots of advice on such matters.

It is fine to say you only want to do a certain thing with the laser you're buying but once you get it and see it's possibilities you will wish you had spent more.... and the thing with lasers is - you will spend more!! ;-)

Very importantly though is the safety, see if you can get on a course by LVR, very useful indeed or at least do your homework and read all you can about operating in front of peoples eyes, they DO cause damage!

And yes, get a 25pin D-Sub straight through printer cable, cheaper and the same, just make sure it is pin 1 to pin1, etc etc

Good luck with it all, it's pretty addictive......


Addition: I should add, my advice is it sounds like you would be needing something in the mW range rather than the W range, 20m is pretty close if you ever plan to audience scan. Spend you money on better scanners for your graphics.

[WookieBoy]

Hi Brian.

I'm in Luton, so not that far from you.

If you want to drop by and have a chat/play with some of the toys, send me a PM and we can work something out?

Oh, and stay WELL away from LaserWorld. They suck donkey balls!

Wookie o/

[swamidog]

one color?

[Galvonaut]

Welcome to PL Brian.

If you want to learn a lot, and have an endless project, you could build your own! I built my first single colour a few years back (it died eventually though) and have been trying to learn enough, decide on components and slowly amass them for about a year. I'm building a single mode RGB projector specifically for graphics (Abstracts). I'm not sure how much it will cost but probably less than £1500. If all goes to plan, it will be capable of much higher quality of output than anything bought from China at the same cost.

If you're not in too much of a rush, this is the way many PLers have gone. My first build is taking a while due to finances, knowledge, availability of ideal components second hand and indecision

The UKLEM is well worth coming too if you can make it. It melted my brain! I've only been to the UKLEM once but such an impression was made that I will all I can to attend them all.

Keith

[UKEventLighting]

Thanks for all your advice guys.

OK I realise this is going to open up a can of worms….but hear goes.

Why are laserworld so bad, everyone is quick to say don’t go there, but without saying why.

From what I can work out their claims on how bright the lasers is some what off, ie CS-2000RGB SE says min 1.500mW max 2.000mW, when in reality is closer to the 1.500mW, if you only want a 1.500mW laser then this is fine?
They claim their scanners on the SE are 50k, but that’s at 4°, but 35k at 8°, if that’s good enough for your requirements then where is the problem?

I have taken your advice and looked at Golden Star Laser, I read, I think on here, that RED 637/8nm is a lot better than 650nm, so based on this I am looking at the B-RGB1800, this has Overload protection (which correct me if I’m wrong means if a scanner fails it shuts the laser down and stops a single point of light coming out) and I can have DT30k scanners (I understand that QuickSHow can only handle 30k scanners), are these scanners any good, also is analogue and not TTL correct?

Cheers

Brian

[andy_con]

people forget laser world own RTI and swisslas and they make awesome projectors

[swamidog]

yes, but the low end laser world projectors are what you give to people you really hate.

people forget laser world own RTI and swisslas and they make awesome projectors