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Thread: New to this and building own RGB laser projector

  1. #11
    Bradfo69's Avatar
    Bradfo69 is offline Pending BST Forum Purchases: $47,127,283.53
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    Ok, so, as I suspected, it basically looks like parts pulled from an existing projector. In a sense, that's good because it may make it easier for you to put together and, really sorta "is" already.

    Immediate parts identification isn't necessarily something I'm great at although, if I did some searching I could probably figure it out. My guess is a perhaps an iTrust show card and the scanners I think are these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/20Kpps-High-...ht_1583wt_1124 - I've seen these I think, but forget the brand. I noticed Meierlight sometimes sells packages like these.

    Here is the deal.... will this all work for what you want to do? Yes. Will it help you to get your feet wet and explore this insane hobby? Yes. Might it quickly become less than satisfactory for you? Quite probably. Especially when you begin to really see it's limitations. That said, once the time comes to upgrade, this stuff will all be fine for more experimentation and "lumia". Lumia is sort of the "ash tray" of the laser world. What I mean by that is simply that back in the day, the joke used to be if it was a school pottery project or something else gone wrong, you could always make an ashtray out of it. It's what we seem to save old parts for because... you can't just throw it away and it's not worth selling so.... make lumia out of it! (Lumia is what is created when shining a laser through all sorts of transparent materials to see what it looks like on the wall. Cut glass... crystal goblets... antique glass door handles... some old fashioned light bulbs... shower door glass... stuff like that. - It's pretty amazing in and of itself.)

    It appears your lasers all have drivers so, that's a good thing. Now you just need the power supply. The only thing I'm not certain about is what voltage(s). You said the green needs 12v but, that doesn't necesarily mean the red and blue are 12. They may be 5v. Maybe your ebay seller can confirm that for you.

    Planters suggestion of a big base plate is probably a good one - that will allow some room for experimentation and provide you a good stable surface to mount all this stuff too. The other thing you need are the dichros and holders for them and possibly a front surface mirror with a holder. You don't necessarily "need" the mirror but may want it. Ideally your baseplate should be a pretty ridged piece of metal but, it could even be a piece of very smooth wood or even plexiglass just to experiment but, you really want metal that you can drill and put screws into to hold everything securely and not flex or warp.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Here is what I'm talking about. Starting from right to left, sometimes people aim the laser into the mirror and bounce it at a 45% angle into the scanner mirrors. The middle laser is aimed at the middle dichro at precisely the same spot as where the laser on the right is shining through it. Then the laser on the left is also aimed precisely where the dots from the other two lasers are coming through it and the beams all end up on your scanner mirrors. The type of dichro you get all depends upon the order in which you mount the lasers. Based upon the powers you have, I would make the blue the one all the way to the right in this photo and use a mirror glued to the mount. Then, your middle dichro is one that allows blue to pass through it but reflect red. Then finally the dichro on the left should be able to pass blue and red but, reflect green.

    It will kinda look like this: (much fancier mounts)

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    You "could" eliminate the first mirror if you aimed the laser directly into the scanner mirrors and some people set theirs up that way. The critical thing to remember in all of this is that your beams coming out of the lasers all have to be at the same height. And... the same height as the scanner mirrors.

    So... you have your assignment - obtain correct power supply(s), baseplate, mounts and dichros and we can move on from there.

    Also for Spaghetti - contact "Johnyayas" on here and ask him about it.

  2. #12
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    Thanks for the help guys! Working on mounts and dichros now, will update as I progress

  3. #13
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    With only a couple of years under my belt in the "laserworld", I am just a novice compaired to the to some of the contributor to this thread. I choose to drop in, because I have been going the same path as you now are about to follow.

    I beleive i own most of the same parts that you have gotten from ebay, and, for shure, this will be more than a starterkit.
    If your green module is the same as I have. (looks the same), it was sold as an analog module, but I received a TTL that reqiure 0,3V into the modulation to start lasing, and lases at full power at 0,4 volts. But i have managed to use it anyway.

    The red module will probably have a wider beam, than your green(3 MM) and blue (4mm) The red will become much wider the loger distance you throw the beam. The blue will also become wider, but not so much, and the green will be even more narrow than the others. As long as you use them for beams indoors, you will not notice this so much, but for graphics, it`s more or less useless.

    The galvos (Scanners) looks to be the same as i have got from ebay, and for the price, they are actually quite nice. The showcard that comes with it, might work, but mine did not work for sound detection or DMX. I did not bother, as i don`t use sound or DMX.

    As for software and DAC, the best reccomandations have already been mentioned. Pangolin software are stable, well known, easy to learn, and does wonder with a lowend projector.

    But you should also consider Spaghetti. I have a couple of licenses, and are very happy with the result. I use Spaghetti with a Riya Light DAC and a IShow DAC. (Yes, both at the same time, and it works great).

    IShow might be worth the money, because you get a DAC and a huge library of ILDA graphics with it. The software itself is crap and should not be installed. There are one MAJOR drawback with the IShow DAK, and that is the support for ONLY 32 BIT Windows OS. Win XP works fine, but Win7 can be quite tricky to accept the drivers for the DAK.

    Spaghetti is easy to learn, stable, and a new version are under construction. (Don`t wait for the new 3.0 as no-one know when it will be released.)

    For dichros, i purchased my first from someone at ebay, and they did work out fine. 3D holders will be highly apreciated as the alignment will be so much easyer for you. I made my first dichro holders from an aluminim L profile, and ended up using most of all known dirty word in my rich norwegian vocabulary.

    For some final words, think safety. One small glich with the laser, and you will end up with permanent eyedamage. TTL modules are full power, and i highly reccomend using safetyglasses. I unfortunantly have retinascars, although using safetyglasses. One microscond lifting the glasses to check the aligment, and one knee knoking into the table when i moved was enough. STAY SAFE.
    __________________________________________________ __________

    More projects than time available.
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    Just got to love lasers!

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