Hi All of the PL Community!
I wanted to start a new thread regarding the Saturn series of scanners after noticing there is no dedicated thread, and most of the information regarding these scanners is mixed in here- and there- which makes finding the latest and most accurate information difficult. Lately we have been receiving a lot of inquiries regarding the status of theses scanners, as well as seeing information (and misinformation) dispersed throughout the forum, so it would be smart to answer all of this in one place and not ‘hijack’ other peoples threads regarding their builds, etc.
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BACKGROUND
As everyone knows, Bill did the design and development of these scanners a few years ago, and they were known as the Saturn 1, Saturn 3, and Saturn 5, along with the Mach DSP amp. These scanners are the Saturns that were shown at various LEMs and delivered to a handful of people on this board. Although performance was excellent, they proved to be very time consuming, difficult, and expensive to build. When the President and CTO of a company spends all of his time manufacturing scanners, not much development work gets done, and this is bad for the industry as a whole. However, we still did deliver around 100 sets to laser light show, industrial, research and medical clients.
When I started working at Pangolin almost two years ago, Bill and I intended on starting a redesign of the Saturn series right away. However, around this time the Compact 506 really started to take off, and most of our focus switched over to supporting this scanner and integrating it into clients’ projectors. We increased the size of our team to keep up with the increasing demand and currently deliver 500+ pieces per month.
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Over the last year or so, Bill, Ante and I have spent a lot of time rethinking the Saturn scanners, using what we learned from the original scanners, as well as lots of things we learned from the continued development of the 506 series. Over this time, we have come up with new ways to make these scanners cheaper and easier to make, while taking less time and improving performance.
One of the new highlights is an all-new Position Detector system, which through testing we are confident is quite possibly THE most accurate in the industry. This new patent-pending design is not only more accurate than our closest competitors, but improves performance by allowing the rotor to be significantly stiffer.
The new offerings will be known as the Saturn 1B, Saturn 5B and Saturn 9B. The Saturn 1B will be optimized for 3mm aperture mirrors. The Saturn 5B will be optimized for 5mm and 6mm aperture mirrors. The Saturn 9B will be optimized for 8mm and 10mm mirrors. The ‘B’ designation refers to this being the re-thought, redesigned version of the Saturn scanners.
The Saturn 3 as it was once known is being discontinued. The new Saturn 5B is a happy medium between the old Saturn 3 and the old Saturn 5. The Saturn 9B is a rethought version of the old Saturn 5, optimized for these very large mirrors.
Currently, we have parts for all of these scanners are in stock, and are delivering immediately in certain cases (as has been discussed on here by Bill), and will start delivering in the coming months for other clients, as we step up manufacturing. At this point we are confirming parts suppliers... for almost every part in the scanner, we bid manufacturing out to several companies, and decide who can do it the best, the fastest, and most economically after receiving the parts, but this process takes time... and the Saturn 9B is comprised of over 125 parts! As with the 506 scanners… these are all made here in our office in Orlando, FL and not in an overseas factory somewhere.
Anyways, we invite any and all questions and look forward to answering them the the best of my abilities, and hearing other peoples thoughts!