DIY Laser Projector

**buffo** · 05-08-2019, 06:34

Originally Posted by Dmax

Attachment 55402 Attachment 55403it is very much a working prototype. once I have everything working as it should I will put it in a box.

Very nice "First Light" pictures!

Will be interested to see the final housing as well.

As james asked above though, what software/hardware are you using to control the projector? Just curious...

Originally Posted by james

What is the advantage of using two different wavelengths for blue?

Broad color palette is one good reason. I've seen several home-build projectors that have had both 445 and 462 (and one that had 405, 445, and 473 even!). The range of blues they can create is incredible...

Then too, 445 makes an amazing white, but it doesn't make a very good "sky" blue, and some of the cyan and magenta mixes look funny to me. In contrast, 462 (or 473) makes for a perfect sky blue, and the cyan and magenta blends are more natural, at least to my eye, but when it comes to white... Well, 462 just doesn't give you that crisp, cool, piercing white like 445 does.

So, yeah, in a perfect world you would have both wavelengths available in your projector. Looks like that's exactly what he decided to do here.

Adam

**Dmax** · 05-08-2019, 08:08

uIm using a Helios Dac and the laser show program, im going to look into what other programs will work with this dac as laser show is not that great.

**djdulux** · 05-09-2019, 04:01

Originally Posted by Dmax

How far have you got with your projector ?
I will post up here as I go along

I think you further ahead then me on some aspects, I have the basic light path planned and tested. Bit more aligning to do but had a goodplay last night and pretty happy with the adjustment options I have.

Next is the beam correction, looking at switching the ND diodes to F4 collimator lens (I have a few) to get the beam to a similar size to the Reds, then telescope the whole lot down.

Also have x2, x4 and x6 cylindrical lenses to play with to get the fast axis under control on the reds and to a lesser extent the NDs.

All the NDs seem to have very similar beam specs so hoping to correct with one set of cylindrical, but we will see.

I am just about to order the Blue/Blue dichroic, so I can get the last blue in the mix.

Once I have the beams all good I will get another beam table made up with only the holes I need and build a case around it, sounds similar to you.

Will add the x-wossee drivers later also, just running off CC power supply at the moment.

Scanners are also about to be ordered, going for the compact506, MachDSP with FB4 and Quickshow.

While I am ordering a few bits I am going to get enough optical parts to build 2 more 520nm green lasers, 2W+ each. That green is so bright and vivid! I am thinking I will have 3 projectors, 2 greens either side of the full colour in the end…

Dupe…

**djdulux** · 05-09-2019, 04:09

Originally Posted by buffo

Very nice "First Light" pictures!

Will be interested to see the final housing as well.

As james asked above though, what software/hardware are you using to control the projector? Just curious...

Broad color palette is one good reason. I've seen several home-build projectors that have had both 445 and 462 (and one that had 405, 445, and 473 even!). The range of blues they can create is incredible...

Then too, 445 makes an amazing white, but it doesn't make a very good "sky" blue, and some of the cyan and magenta mixes look funny to me. In contrast, 462 (or 473) makes for a perfect sky blue, and the cyan and magenta blends are more natural, at least to my eye, but when it comes to white... Well, 462 just doesn't give you that crisp, cool, piercing white like 445 does.

So, yeah, in a perfect world you would have both wavelengths available in your projector. Looks like that's exactly what he decided to do here.

Adam

I think this was the reason, was so long ago I got the diodes I can not remember. I think when I was deciding I heard many reasons for 462 and 445 so I just went for both. The Blue/Blue dichroic exists from thegroup buy 2 years ago so seemed easy thing to do.
I am not sure how Quickshow deals with 2 blues, I hope it just mixes to get the best colour palette?
Dupe…

**buffo** · 05-10-2019, 09:52

Originally Posted by djdulux

I am not sure how Quickshow deals with 2 blues, I hope it just mixes to get the best colour palette?

I think the new Quickshow controllers support all 6 ILDA standard color channels. (If my memory serves, however, the early FB3s only had three channels.) For sure the FB4 and QM-2000 controllers have all 6.

But yeah, assuming the Quickshow DAC has 6 channels you can have a "light blue" and a "dark blue" channel and adjust each one separately.

Adam

**omegafruitpunch** · 08-04-2022, 07:05

dang this is awesome. Where does one begin their education for this type of build. I am also trying to build my first laser.

**Dmax** · 08-04-2022, 08:51

Here is a little update guys... I ended up scaling down the whole setup as it was just to big and I wanted to be able to carry it in a back pack. all the electronics are the same but just compacted into a smaller housing. its only 24 cm wide, 19 cm deep and 11 cm high. The circuit on the strip board in the housing holds a PIC18F4550 that takes care of all the safety issues, i.e. if the data cable becomes disconnected it will shut down the diodes right away, it will also monitor the internal temperature and switch on the fan if it gets too high, it also stops the diodes from turning on if the key switch and push button and power are not activated in the correct order. I took your advice James ... The last picture is a controller based in a teensy 4.1, I'm using Laserboy to convert laser files to wave files, I then save those to an SD card that the Teensy can then play back to the onboard DACs, The wave files can be triggered in sync with music as there is an extra MCU running a FFT on the signal from a built in microphone, I must say this works really well. the controller has no housing at the moment but again I'm going to make it as small as I possibly can, I will post up a few videos at some point..