Hello dudes.. its been a really long time since ive visited Photonlexicon. Lack of time because of other projects then lasers has taken up my time and i have shifted from trying to build my own lasers into buying them directly from various sellers and just focus on creating shows when i have the time.
Anyhow.
Some time ago (3years) i started a thread here about Pangolin Quickshow 2.0 wasn't giving out through FB3 a full 5Volt to the modules.
The thread was quite big and even pangolin got themself involved in the discussion calling me all sorts of things but mainly a poorly educated laserists and perhaps i am but i think this test tells that im a atleast right about my observation.
What did i test?
Well i didn't have a powermeter back then so i could only test with my multimeter. Reason was that when i was building and combining my own modules. mainly blue or should i say UV-blue that was the cheapest blue you could get back then. 405nm diodes and run them from my transformator with 5Volt and the superb flexmods i saw a big difference in brightness compared to when using Pangolin Quickshow. So i hooked up a powermeter and tested the output from the FB3 to the modules in different ways, and what i noticed was that my FB3 didn't give out the full 5 volt that most modules today and then requested to be at there brightest output.
I didn't really remember but i think i never got over 4Volt from the FB3.. I tested a friends FB3 card just to make sure it wasn't just my card. and the same result.
After that big thread and Pangolins respons that this was how it was and etc etc, i didn't go further but have always felt that this isnt right.
Some weeks ago i did a show at a venue here in Stockholm with my 3 laser projectors. and after my show was over another laserist hooked up his Phoenix software and dac and i was amazed at what i saw. I have never seen my projectors that bright and the colors where great.
A week agoo i met up with this guy and we decided to do a real test to truly see why and how much they differ from each other.
And below is the result.
The Test.
The laser modules was on exactly the same time for both tests.. so if we wanted to test how much mW the blue was putting out we had it on for exactly 1minute with Quickshow we had it on exactly the same time with Phoenix.
The test was made in 2 ways.. Measurement in mW and Voltage. And no i didnt have a Scope nor a expensive Spectraphysics powermeter but the test was made with the same projector 7watt RGB and we made similar Cues in the software etc.
As Quickshow has 2 different Outputs regarding to power and number of points used in the CUE we did the same test for phoenix, although Phoenix seems to be putting out a litlebit more power than Quickshow from default.
Im afraid i couldent test the Voltage on the green module as i didnt reach to those cables during this test.
Result is that Quickshow is all in all putting out 10-20% less power to your laser depending on color. Sometimes more.
For both test we used 2 different laser settings.
1. Normal Cue just a single beam.
2. Just a single beam using quick targets output.
Now i have found out that Pangolin has acquired the Phoenix software so i cant say anything about Pangolin but Quickshow is not my choice anymore.