cutting the cord

[kecked]

Well now I have a projector that can sit on my lap and a computer that can sit on my lap. Is there a way to run beyond from my laptop so I can cut the cord completely and be free of my desktop and my ld2000 card? Yes I know use LSX but that is not my point. I want to run ld and beyond from my laptop in a park, at work, on a train, while walking the dog..... Is there such a way to do this? a dongle maybe? Then I need a way to go from the laptop to the projector. USB to ILDA or such.

[swamidog]

i think there's a beyond version for the FB3. that would be a lot more portable.

Well now I have a projector that can sit on my lap and a computer that can sit on my lap. Is there a way to run beyond from my laptop so I can cut the cord completely and be free of my desktop and my ld2000 card? Yes I know use LSX but that is not my point. I want to run ld and beyond from my laptop in a park, at work, on a train, while walking the dog..... Is there such a way to do this? a dongle maybe? Then I need a way to go from the laptop to the projector. USB to ILDA or such.

[White-Light]

There's a feature now that allows you 14 days between connections, so if you want to work "off-line" (eg designing shows etc), you can use Beyond for those 14 days before having to re-connect it to the LD / FB board.

So all you need do is install Beyond on your laptop and then connect it to the LD board / FB3 / 4, after which you have 14 days to work with it on the laptop DAC free before having to reconnect.

If your LD board isn't in an external .net housing then this may be an issue unless you have a FB.

I'd highly recommend a copy of Lightconverse for those purposes as well as its visualisation abilities are a whole level above the Enhanced Reality Preview.

[mixedgas]

Whitelight, he means wireless analog ILDA. Which has been done exactly once before, by Terry Michaels... Terry used telecom Codec chips modified for DC coupling, into a Multiplexer, then into a 900 Mhz spread spectrum radio. I got to play with it 15 years ago.

Kecked, if you allow for Nyquist, its about 2 Megabits per second or 2.5 Mhz of uncompressed Bandwidth to send a 12-16 bit ILDA stream. Aka 1/4 of a T1 or E1

Your other choice is remote control of a storage medium, ie a FB3 or a Stored show on a card, such as Etherdream...

Pangolin does have "networked" remote control of a Pangolin using a QM2000, but you need a card in each machine, both slave and master last time I checked.

Steve

[Pangolin]

There are a few options. If you can live without LD2000, then the FB3 is the obvious answer for laptops. If you want to use LD2000, then you can use a NET box, but you'll need to hack into it a bit and get it to work from an external battery. Likewise, there is the old MAGMA solution which can also work off of an external battery.

Dieter is helping me finish the "bridge" right now (file format compatible with both Showtime and BEYOND). This will help to bring Showtime shows into BEYOND. Since BEYOND already does everything else that LD2000 did (plus a whole lot more), it means that this bridge is the last piece of the puzzle.

If you look at our Facebook photos at trade shows, we always and exclusively use laptops...

Bill

[White-Light]

I think we both jumped to the same conclusion here Bill although whether my post contributed to yours, I'm not sure.

Steve corrected me and pointed out that Kecked is actually looking for a Wireless solution.

[norty303]

Reading it back again, I think its Steve who has it wrong actually.

He just wants to be able to run his software from his laptop without needing to have the.NET enclosure all dragging along (or card installed in a slot in the desktop), hence the reference to a dongle and a 'USB to ILDA or such'

I think the FB3 is the solution here, and the 14 day 'disconnected' time.

[kecked]

norty has it right. But I did post elsewhere about wireless. I just want to be able to program shows to my new mini projector while sitting anywhere. IE laptop, projector only and make shows. I'll give FB3 a whirl. I've been eyeing it for some time. If FB3 lets me use Beyond than it will work. Plus I can drop the HD 24 and Transcoder.

Update here on the mini. I was able to put the whole thing on battery power. I found some 24v batteries that let this projector run for hours. http://www.batteryspace.com/NiMH-Bat...-/-E-bike.aspx

Two can fit in the 6" cube but don't forget to put a voltage regulator on them or you'll risk putting 29V into the projector. I also have a 9V pack for the diodes. Total weight is still under 5 lbs. Now to put all this wire mess in a case. I also want to add a trickle charger so when it's on line power it charges and cycles the batteries. See I found a use of that extra space!

Now the wireless Idea was to just use a/d d/a ro make a digital stream to send over wireless to projectors in general. All it would do is digitally convert the 5 channels xy rgb and then send a multiplex data stream to the other end with a sync signal. Then at the projector you d/a the stream and demux the analog signals using the sync channel. As Steve suggested its a solid 1/4T stream but that is not a big deal. In fact you could send two stream, one for color and one for position. This would be a safety feature because you can add some position checking and check sum data to make sure you don't have a bad position from interference. Sounds complex but with a microprocessor and off the shelf wireless modules it would be doable. Won't say easy. It would be just the same to drop the wireless and use Cat6. The other nice feature is an opto coupler on both end to isolate grounds for safety in a lighting rig. If I was going to try this I'd go wired first and then the wireless is pretty much off the shelf. I however am really happy with the ability to use these 506 scanners to make such a small package to start.

Who would ever have thought you'd have solid state 200mw balanced whitelight without a fan off 2A in a 6" cube! Check out the build thread I started by searching MINI. I uploaded an avi of it in action as well.

Believe it or not I think the hardest part of this build is going to be building the case for it. I'm going to use grebble to model a BORG cube and see if I can laser cut something to make it look like the beam comes from one of the weapon emitters. Thinking of some thing like the http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=31282 with the beam coming from the place the sphere is coming from but emitting from the top of a face rather than the bottom. I will start with a pattern and then maybe do the 3d parts later. Should be very cool.

[Pangolin]

Hi Marc,

I made a component change on your amps to make them work well at 18 volts. The amps will run fine up to 29V. That is not a problem. And you will get a little more performance by simply using the higher rail voltage, but you'd get a bit better performance by removing a resistor I put on top of another resistor (3D construction) and then re-tuning just a bit. Anything that is rounded now will square right up with such a change.

Bill

[kecked]

I was watching shows last night and I have to say, I can't see any rounding or any reason I want to mess with what works. I am going to appeal to my inner adult and say good enough! I'm afraid that to get that last 2% I'd be risking my 98%. This is a fools errand. Really Bill you've outdone yourself. I will try the drivers that Steve is working on but I'm not going to mess with what works. I'm going to miss tinkering I think. I guess I'll build something else maybe around the saturns later on but this baby is done (other than the case).