First hobbyist laser setup recommendation

[kobraman]

Hello dear Photolexicon laserists!

I have been playing with a friend's cheap chinese laser for the past week and having a really good time.

What am I looking for?
From what I understand, I need to buy a laser, a DAC to control it with, and optionally software.

What do I want to do?
1. Use it with LaserCam, LaserOS (formerly known as LaserDock. they have some cool games!)
2. Play ILDA files (bonus points for SD card so it can run independently).
3. Be able to control it via code (e.g. to develop games, or respond dynamically to audio - I'm a programmer/hacker by day)

I'm gonna use it mainly for home shows, parties, playing arcade video games, and hacking around with it.

Any and all suggestions for what to buy, or general advice will be greatly appreciated!

Peace out,
kobraman from Tel Aviv, Israel


edit:
So far I've been considering Helios DAC (cheap, but does it work with LaserOS?), LaserOS dongle DAC (expensive, and does it work with LaserCam and other platforms for coding?), ether-dream DAC (cheap, but does it work with LaserOS?).

And as for the laser, I have no idea

[Melgarh]

I can try LaserOS DAC with LaserCam for you this evening, however I reckon that it won't work.

LaserOS will work only with its DAC, so no good for ether-dream either.

The DAC itself has plenty of features and development, but it is slow (30k limit from what they've told me so can't use it to my full Kvants potential) and I believe its closed system (ask on their Reddit!), so you may have to buy 2 DAC's (like me, with Mamba DAC as primary for laser graphics).

I've the very same cheap chinese laser on the very start of this hobby - it was a great thing to see if this is something you wish to invest time & money in to. Now I've 3 lasers (Volkslaser Evocube and Kvant Clubmax 1800 -> a proper laser) and 2 DAC's and various pieces of Software

1) Lasercam will need a fast galvo laser as its very graphics-based thing. Wallet will likely hurt.
2) I've no experience with SD card readers on expensive lasers, only on chinese crap -> its a pain to control. Better use a DAC and netbook tbh.
3) no experience, sorry

[swamidog]

LSX (by the same author of lasercam) supports the LaserOS Dac, so there's a chance LaserCam will.

I can try LaserOS DAC with LaserCam for you this evening, however I reckon that it won't work.

LaserOS will work only with its DAC, so no good for ether-dream either.

The DAC itself has plenty of features and development, but it is slow (30k limit from what they've told me so can't use it to my full Kvants potential) and I believe its closed system (ask on their Reddit!), so you may have to buy 2 DAC's (like me, with Mamba DAC as primary for laser graphics).

I've the very same cheap chinese laser on the very start of this hobby - it was a great thing to see if this is something you wish to invest time & money in to. Now I've 3 lasers (Volkslaser Evocube and Kvant Clubmax 1800 -> a proper laser) and 2 DAC's and various pieces of Software

1) Lasercam will need a fast galvo laser as its very graphics-based thing. Wallet will likely hurt.
2) I've no experience with SD card readers on expensive lasers, only on chinese crap -> its a pain to control. Better use a DAC and netbook tbh.
3) no experience, sorry

[Melgarh]

Yep it seems like it - at least on the website it says it. I presume you've to copy a particular DLL to the drivers of the lasercam to detect the DAC as it does not detect it out of the box. If you figure out which one it is, please feel free to share! =)

[JohnYayas]

Spaghetti Laser Show supports LaserDock / LaserOS. It has a laser cam type application built-in.