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NELEM III --September 11-13, 2015
NELEM III
When: September 11-13, 2015
Where: 540 Main Street, West Newbury, MA/ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA
last year in June we had a wonderful time (see NELEM II) getting together with laserists in the area (Dynamic Lasers, Planters and myself). We had 8+ high power rigs and put on a great show, complete with pig roast and libations.
Many of you on the forum wrote to say it was too close to the 4 of July to come, (previous commitments and such) so we moved the time to September to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather, earlier darker conditions, and relative lack of bugs.
We are hoping that krazer will be around for us to visit MIT and his cool femtosecond lasers, and we can also plan a sail on the Charles River.
Venue: We have a 30,000 sq ft building to mount an indoor show or we can project on a 200 X 100 foot termination screen, like last year. I also wired WiFi throughout the premise.
Here are some picks of the venue, and last year's show.
Also, this year Gort the Laser Robot will make an appearance:
Hope to see you there!
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Ric,
Nice to see this post. Originally, I had hoped to contribute a heavy lift drone equipped with an RGB projector. The drone should not be a problem, but a WiFi controlled, full diode projector of "reasonable" weight that can run off </=24V DC, may be.
Anyone with something like that and who would like to project from a really unusual vantage point should PM me.
One weakness last year was sound. Normal consumer scale speakers/amps for the outdoor location that must exceed an acre or even for the indoor location (2/3 acre) just doesn't cut it. I have a couple of 1500W Crown amps, but nothing appropriate to drive.
I would vote for the indoor location for the main shows. The haze control would be so much easier and projection from several locations would be a kick.
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Eric;
How much optical power do you need for this projector? And what is the weight limit? Also, does it need to be wifi-controlled, or can it run off a stand-alone controller (like the FB3-XE with a memory card installed) and just use some kind of RF-link for the e-stop?
Thinking about nothing more than a bare optical table (complete with scanners and amps) plus the weight of a decent Lipo battery, a large voltage regulator for the drivers, and a DC-DC converter to supply the dual-polarity voltages for the scanners. I think you could get this down to maybe 3 pounds.
Obviously this wouldn't be something that would be able to pass commercial muster - at least from a safety standpoint - but for a private event it might make for an interesting demo (albeit a bit ghetto). I even know someone who lives close to the area who might have a pre-made optical plate that could drop right in... (Hank, are you listening?)
Adam
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We have a wide-open field right next to the indoor venue, terminated by trees on all three sides and a large building on the fourth side. I'll email Andrew to see if he can amp up the sound system.
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Adam,
Weight limit should be less than 10 lb. Wireless control with an RF link would be fine. If the power can be self contained and isolate the projector from the flight battery/generator that would be a lot simpler.
Just my kinda getto...Mad Max.
Power? What do you think? Pretty dark. No more than 150 feet up. Wash a 1 -2 acre field Richard Dreyfuss style.
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That's plenty for sound! Thanks.
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Eric;
Lower powered projectors (figure a 1 watt RGB - just a bare optical plate with components, plus a battery and a voltage regulator) should easily come in under 10 lbs, so that's good.
Power? Hmmm... A 1 watt unit would look OK if it was completely dark and you had fog. But it's outside, and if you will be up more than 20-30 feet you won't be able to reliably control the fog up there. That means you will need more power, which complicates matters. Are you looking for visible beams/fans, or just patterns on the ground? Visible aerial effects are going to need real power.
Then too, if you want to be > 50 feet up, I think you will need more power than you can lift. My guess is you'd need at least 6 watts to be able to see the beam at a height of 50 ft. (Again, really hard to control fog that high, so you have to compensate with more power.)
You have a couple 10-watt RGB projectors, right? How much does the optical table weigh in one of those? Could you rip one out easily? And if so, how much juice would you need to run it for 5-10 min? (Thinking about a big 4S LiPo and an LM317 with a pass-bank for laser power + a DC-DC converter for the scanner amp supply.)
Adam
EDIT: Looks like the dual-polarity supply for the scanners is going to be pricey... DC-DC converters that can source enough current are hard to find. Best bet is a pair of matched units that can deliver +/- 15 volts at 500 ma. That will run you just north of $100. But that's only good enough to drive cheap-ass 20K scanners. If you want +/- 24 volts at a full amp, it's going to cost a lot more. Crap...
Last edited by buffo; 06-09-2015 at 04:18.
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But then again imagine a cool spaceship drone arising behind my big 8 foot Gort laser monster. You are right about controlling fog outside, but if it is a quiet night you can get some spectacular effects, as seen in this video:
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