An advisory for Pluto II owners

[hitekvoop]

It would appear that the inline plastic fuse holder used in the Pluto II's is made of low-grade plastic. I had one fail on me at SELEM whereby the housing simply broke under the pressure of the fuse spring sending the fuse hurtling through the inside of the lower compartment and rendering the unit dead until a replacement could be sourced. Worse yet, when I investigated my other Pluto and *gently* probed the inside of that one's fuse holder, the same failure occurred. I've also been made aware that I'm not alone in this failure mode.

Yesterday I went to my local electronics shop and picked up two new fuse holders and some additional fuses. Before one is able to replace the existing holder, let it be known that the hole in the back plate is a hair's width too small for the new parts I bought. I had to run a 1/2" bit through it and shave the tiniest amount of material off before they would fit. It was the same way on both PJ's. The good news is less than an hour later I had both my projectors back up and running. The bad news, other than the hole being slightly too small is it's pretty tight back there what with all the wires terminating on the back plate and the easiest way I found to work on it was to disconnect as many of them as I could. If you go this route, do yourself a favor and take a picture before you start pulling stuff.

Just wanted to put this out there. If anyone else has experienced a similar failure, feel free to chime in. And for those who have and need repair, make sure you have a 1/2" bit handy to skim that hole with.

That is all.

[Bradfo69]

I had exactly the same situation happen after return from SELEM. I used a Dremel with a grinding stone as it's all I had handy but, a quick trip to Radio Shack secured a fuse holder and new fuses. The only fuse holder they had that worked held the longer inch and a quarter length fuses.

Another thing I have encountered now with three Pluto's is I've needed to take apart the powercon connector and redo the AC wires to the connector. They strip them far too short and tin them slightly but, they slip off the positive and negative terminals too easily.

The funny thing is, I like these projectors so much and the price is so good that even little minor annoyances like this are more than tolerable.

[VibrationsOfDoom]

...Hopefully the makers of these lasers have been notified and the design flaw corrected... Not everyone has the ability, tools, or the skills to make repairs as you guys have done...

[edison]

Yeah, feedback is always great to have from a customer. However most people here are aware that the price reflects the quality and expect that they should be able to do some minor repairs. The price is low from china so this is something you can expect. If you want to avoid these issues i would suggest buy an RGBlasersystems or other European brand. The price is higher but you are sure that it has no issues after you recieved it since the quallity is on the same level as its price.

[norty303]

To be honest, if you can't do it, find a shop that does pro audio and/or lighting repairs. They'll be able to fit you a new fuse holder easily.

[planters]

These Pluto's are in the news lately. I agree with Edison that the low price does seem to be reflected in some quality issues. The optical train has been discussed in another thread and it does not sound as if the quality control is too good. When they're working well then they are a good deal, but the chances that there are going to be problems are unusually high.


Norty,
I agree with you, but this does mean there will be an additional cost.

[edison]

If he was in my country i was happy to do the replacement for free. I must admit that i hope he remembers me the next time he needs a system or a module

[planters]

I'm curious. I hope that this does not degenerate and because I have no skin in this game I feel I can ask.

How much does the Pluto II cost? How much power does it put out. What is the claimed divergence. What scanners are used?
Now edison, if you produced a projector that equals these specifications, how much would it cost?

[edison]

I dont know the exact prices from the Pluto II series. I know that is not the answer you want to hear but on average you can say that things are about 10x more expencive then in china. The quallity is 5x as good but that is just my own experiance. The beamquallity is better, the powersupplies are better and overal quallity is better. The problem is that a well respected company that is doing lasershows every weekend and maybe even during the week some product presentations simply can,t have these kind of issues. The equipment has to be reliable and needs to work no mather what. That is simply why companies that really have to rely on their equipment buy Tarm, RGBlasersystems, kvant, medialas or cittadini etc. The low end market doesn,t have the jobs that pay for that kind of equipment and they never will. The gap between 5 watt and 20 watt is still huge as an investment. Up till 5 watt its affordable but as you said earlier in another thread, that the prices are going up rapidly.

[WookieBoy]

When I bought mine, they were $1750 for 3w model (.5w 638/ 1w 532/ 1.5w 445)
Claimed 4mm @ <1mRad
Beams are nice and tight. Came well aligned. Seems ok so far.
Has the usual nasty dmx/auto show card though, and hitting the e-stop has a 1-2 second delay before it cuts beams (sure this is due to the aforementioned show card:/) but otherwise very much worth the money as a starting medium projector... considering it was about 1/2 the cost of a SwissLas unit...

Nowadays though, I'd probably build my own using modules made by members here as I've got a few ideas I want to try out... as soon as I getttime to tinker...