Ingenuity

[keeperx]

Observation:
People that have no means or access to a professional DAC solution or nice equipment, often seem to be very resourceful and inventive when it comes to building a projector. They seem to be very interested in DIY and even get evolved with things like writing software and building neat things out of cast off bits of electronics. I have seen scanners built from hard drives and sound cards, weird beam machines, and so on. I have noticed that as everyone gets pango'd, the nifty DIY discussion gets less and less.

Just an observation, feel free to discuss.

[shrad]

I agree that pure DIY is something that generates interesting innovations

Personnaly I'm not pro, I don't make any shows, and I won't ever get involved into some professional work with projectors, but I really love to do my "mc gyver" with lasers and all the stuff I can scavenge

be sure that when I have my house, I'll share all my inventions all I need is some space to store the things I can't store and therefore don't buy/scavenge, and some space to build up a nice "lab"

this is something I've been waiting for for several years as developping things and gadgets is one of the things I like the most!

[drlava]

I'm all about DIY, as you know, the EzAudDAC driver makes DIY sound card DACs a legitimate possibility. I'm not sure if you are trying to insinuate something with that post, however there is a simple explanation.

People with more extra time than money, and the interest, will follow others and build DIY equipment partly out of the fun of it.
People with more time than money, and the motivation and ability, will also build upon the progress of others and even create new things.
People with more money and less time will likely just go to the pro solution and not bother with farting around with half-baked ideas.

Put more clearly, if you have money for pro software, you have money for good gear as well and can put your ingenuity towards other things.

[shrad]

that's true that half baked ideas are the plague of all DIYer... I have myself dozens of ideas I simply don't have the time or resource to concretize

but as soon as I have an opportunity to have something done, I run for it!

[keeperx]

Well i guess if im insinuate anything, it is that as everyone moves toward commercial solutions, there seem to be less and less technical discussion here. When there were people actually pursuing things like the sound card dac and aoher DIY/homebrew hardware and software, there was more nifty discussions about the science of things.

[300EVIL]

Observation:
People that have no means or access to a professional DAC solution or nice equipment, often seem to be very resourceful and inventive when it comes to building a projector. They seem to be very interested in DIY and even get evolved with things like writing software and building neat things out of cast off bits of electronics. I have seen scanners built from hard drives and sound cards, weird beam machines, and so on. I have noticed that as everyone gets pango'd, the nifty DIY discussion gets less and less.

Just an observation, feel free to discuss.

Well, I disagree.

Instead of pointing a finger at a particular company and saying their the blame for taking all the fun away, make something better! I'm sure if someone developed an open source software that comes even close to what Pangolin is capable of, it would be an immediate hit!

I'm all for a group effort laser software that would be like what Linux is to OS's today but, in order to do that, you need good programmers that take the time to listen to end user suggestions and don't get into long drawn out arguments on trivial stuff.

It's hard and pointless to just go and duplicate the best light show software in the world. (my opinion.) Now, I'm no programmer, but I'd rather get the software end of my laser light show project out of the way and work on other things. Personally, I am very interested in the DIY part of the hardware end. I think a lot of people here would also agree. As an example, look at what DZ (and many other folks) have contributed! Lots of really cool DIY gear for us hardware guys.

I'd say if you want to get a kick ass DYI open source laser show sofware up and running. Make it happen! I'm sure a few programmers here would be interested in collectively working on such a project. Expect a lot of input and constructive critizism from us non-programmer types though!

[mixedgas]

Actually the level of technical discussion went down when one user volunteered to leave rather then be cluebyfoured and there was no one for the techies to argue with, at least who knew enough to argue at the level that was leading to innovation. We may not miss his inane an insane anti-establishment rants. But he did make it at least interesting enought to read his posts.

That said, I'm hijacking this thread. Here is some innovation.

I have a less then innovative but easy way to make a accurate 12 bit Test Pattern Generator, that doesn't have the subtle error the sound card dacs do. About 25$ in parts with 12 bit x-y and 0-5V ttl color, I may make that a 16 color system with a subtle change, ie 7 colors x 2 levels of intensity. I have board layout done. Here is the rub, if I only do 10 boards, its not worth doing as PCB board costs go down drasticly in quanity. It has to be something 25-50 boards for the price to really start to drop.
And of course you have to order all the boards at once.

There is room for one or two other patterns in the rom, such as laser media or a PL smiley.

So If I sold the programmed chips at my cost plus 5$ + shipping, and we did a group buy on the boards, many of us could have good galvo tuning gear at about 55$ a unit, give or take. The more who order, the cheaper it gets. The electronics get price breaks at 100 sets of parts.

I also propose that buyers each order two boards, so that one is around for future builders who may not even have been to PL yet! The collective hive storing away unobtainium for future members....

Who wants in?????

Steve

[heroic]

Actually the level of technical discussion went down when one user volunteered to leave rather then be cluebyfoured and there was no one for the techies to argue with, at least who knew enough to argue at the level that was leading to innovation. We may not miss his inane an insane anti-establishment rants. But he did make it at least interesting enought to read his posts.

That said, I'm hijacking this thread. Here is some innovation.

I have a less then innovative but easy way to make a accurate 12 bit Test Pattern Generator, that doesn't have the subtle error the sound card dacs do. About 25$ in parts with 12 bit x-y and 0-5V ttl color, I may make that a 16 color system with a subtle change, ie 7 colors x 2 levels of intensity. I have board layout done. Here is the rub, if I only do 10 boards, its not worth doing as PCB board costs go down drasticly in quanity. It has to be something 25-50 boards for the price to really start to drop.
And of course you have to order all the boards at once.

There is room for one or two other patterns in the rom, such as laser media or a PL smiley.

So If I sold the programmed chips at my cost plus 5$ + shipping, and we did a group buy on the boards, many of us could have good galvo tuning gear at about 55$ a unit, give or take. The more who order, the cheaper it gets. The electronics get price breaks at 100 sets of parts.

I also propose that buyers each order two boards, so that one is around for future builders who may not even have been to PL yet! The collective hive storing away unobtainium for future members....

Who wants in?????

Steve

What's the processor on it, and can I get the source code? If I like the answers to both then I'm in :-)

[keeperx]

well if it works and we get the price down some im in..

ilda test pattern + LaserMedia + the blanking speed test ... would make a well rounded unit i think..

[keeperx]

Actually the level of technical discussion went down when one user volunteered to leave rather then be cluebyfoured and there was no one for the techies to argue with, at least who knew enough to argue at the level that was leading to innovation. We may not miss his inane an insane anti-establishment rants. But he did make it at least interesting enought to read his posts.

Agreed

and he got clue by foured anyway... that needs to rectified.