Laser lumia illuminated obelisk

[robvdv]

Recently I built a 10 meter tall laser illuminated obelisk for a AfrikaBurn, the South African regional Burning Man event. I got a lot of help and supplies from people on this and other forums, so I thought I should post my build experience.

Here's the final product:


I bought 10 A140 diodes from Cliff at Cajun Lasers. I mounted the diodes in Aixiz (thanks, Chuck) modules using a brass tube to press fit them in a small vice. I housed two small capacitors in the module to smooth current. I used a LM350 constant current drivers and a 1 ohm resistor to power the lasers. The heatsinks were scrounged from old PCs and hacksawed to size. Here's a photo of one of the drivers:



I used Sketchup to design the projectors in 3d and then exported the 2d designs using a DXF exporting plugin. I had these designs CNC'ed out of 5mm acrylic. I used a 15rpm 12v gearmotor to rotate the lumia wheel. A mate of mine designed and built pulse width modulator circuits to drive the motors. Here's what the finished projectors look like:



The outer obelisks were lit using diodes scrounged from old DVD burners. They were powered using an LM317 with a 4.7 ohm resistor. I connected two diodes in series per one driver since I was using 12V. I ran out of Aixiz modules so I drilled a 6mm hole into a heat sink and press fit the diode:



Finally I used acrylic line generators held by crocodile clips on thin aluminium strips to generate the line. Here are some videos of the effect:

Find Yourself - first laser lumia wheel test - YouTube
Find Yourself; The lumia show. - YouTube
Find Yourself Up Close - YouTube

There are a lot more photos and links if you're curious here: "Find Yourself" at AfrikaBurn 2012 | Facebook

Thanks to everyone who helped

Next year I hope to do some fun stuff with RGB lasers and vibrating water droplets.

[Displaser]

Very impressive, nice work!

Thanks for sharing this.

Greg

[kitatit]

Great work!! That's a striking effect. It's great to see inspiring original projects like this. That photo definitely gets the senses popping.

Thanks for showing us your ideas.

Cheers
Kit

[dar303]

Wow, nice effect!
Where did you get the lumia wheel and the acrylic pieces for line generation?

[robvdv]

The wheel was cut from regular shower glass. The acrylic line generators were from Aixiz.

[LaserWizard]

I love it. Wish I could be there. Will you ship it around to festivals, etc.?

[colouredmirrorball]

I love it. Wish I could be there. Will you ship it around to festivals, etc.?

:P

[ImageLight]

Guess not.....

[Jem]

This has set me thinking...

I notice that in this instance the projections are on to the exterior of the obelisk. How about constructing something similar out of opaque acrylic and illuminating it internally? I figure that should work to some extent, guess it could look pretty cool as well.... Hmm...

Yet another project for the pile already waiting for me to get started on

Jem

[robvdv]

How about constructing something similar out of opaque acrylic and illuminating it internally?

The projection angle is the problem. Internal illumination was my initial thought, but then I built a prototype and it just didn't look that great:



I used translucent fabric instead of acrylic but the principle is the same. Ultimately a project like this is a series of compromises.