Laser Light Show

[Rpete2121]

Hello my name is Ricky I am a physics major at SIU. I work in the department here and one of the professors was very interested in getting a computer programmable laser light show. I am not completely sure of the uses but my guess would be to use in lower level lectures and during public outreach events. I have been looking for something that is easy to program different patterns (I saw some of the video some members have posted and those are amazing but they don't have to be that nice), and either prebuilt or could be assembled fairly easy by myself or a small group of undergrad physics majors with basic electrical and programing skills. I have seen this http://www.midwest-laser.com/html/co...aser_show.html but read that is outdated, and this https://www.chinavasion.com/china/wh...m_Annimations/ but heard it is difficult to get the software to work well. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

[White-Light]

I'm sure the US guys will chip in, but projectors in the US have to be varianced for commercial / public use which rules out most Chinese projectors. I'm not sure exactly where the line is drawn between commercial / public and non commercial / non public usage, and so where you fall in that as a university doing not for profit displays during outreach lectures. However, non varianced projectors are illegal for commercial / public display in the USA.

If you need a varianced projector, you're probably going to be looking at something from someone such as X-Laser USA and in a totally different price bracket (the Chinese X-Laser is a non related company and I understand they're products are not varianced).

That said, X Laser (USA) have an up to 70% off sale currently:

http://x-laser.us/2015-spring-cleara...-up-to-70-off/

There's a downloadable price list on that page of current stock and condition (they're returns / ex-demo / slightly damaged units).

It looks like you'd want a Skywriter for graphics. You're looking around $850-900 on that list. Considerably more new.

On top of that you need to factor in a DAC and software.

Unfortunately, it's not a cheap hobby.

Building is an option, although a variance will still be an issue. There are people on here who can guide you through that although it takes time and is quite complex. There are also cheapish software / DAC solutions, but these will still probably cost you a couple of hundred dollars on top of the projector.

Maybe you could approach X-Laser or someone similar and see if they're willing to donate a graphics capable projector to the University? If you find a projector, you could also try speaking to Pangolin to see if they can do a special deal on Beyond for you as the use is educational outreach. I'm not saying either of these companies can / will help you, but it can't help to ask although I would imagine any request would have to come direct from the University and not yourself.... Otherwise every student would do it!