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Thread: New Build (FINALLY!!!)

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Default New Build (FINALLY!!!)

    After collecting bits here and there and kinda-of starting for about 5 years, I am finally getting around to knocking together my lumia projector. The whole projector will be queued via DMX; the speed of the motors, the rotary solenoids that will divert the beams to different effects, and the brightness of each laser. This is going to have four RGB sources, some with different wavelengths for variety... e.g. 445nm and 462nm, 520nm and 532nm... Even though they are running through dichros, it's only to conserve space. Each color will have it's own path. The only RGB source that will have a nearly aligned path will be feeding some torture tubes for some good color mixing seen here:
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    So, nothing special here. Same W.D. sample pattern glass that everyone is using with a hobnail bowl on a 3d printed turntable for the top tier.
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    The bottom tier will have a few torture tubes and a three-layer cut crystal effect, each crystal glass will be (optionally) rotated on different axes.
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    All the motors are 0.6 RPM but they'll be on a speed controller that can get them down to 0.2 RPM when needed. Those will be controlled via a DMX LED dimmer. Each motor has a fast quenching diode to counter the back EMF. Still a ton to do but the hardest part (or so I have been told) is getting started. I don't believe that but regardless, I have broken ground.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
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    North of Jackson Michigan USA
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    Excellent, congrats!

    You can use a diamond holesaw to turn your square glass into circles.

    Please keep posting.

    See you at SELEM?

    ...Mike
    Runs with Lasers

  3. #3
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    Try adds liquids of different index. If you are careful you can pour a stepped gradient liquid like mgcl2

  4. #4
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    Apr 2009
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    Excellent! Can’t wait to see pix!

    …Mike
    Runs with Lasers

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheHermit View Post
    Very cool! Mine is still rolling around in my head. Any progress update?


    I can't wait to see what you come up with!! Thanks! I forgot all about this post over the years, lol! I have some pics at the bottom!

    Sweet! Didn't think about DMX for controlling lumia projectors. I've still got unused GPIO pins on the Teensy 4.1 for PWM of RGB & a 6th unused DAC channel for DC motor speed control.
    I'm repurposing the RGB LDs from a pair of 3 watt el cheapo modules. Three assignable beams will be RG, GB, BR, which will be arranged 120 degrees around the lumia glass. That will produce 3 different clouds of the same type, but in 3 color ranges, while rotating in 3 different directions.
    The pick-off mirrors could direct all 3 clouds towards the central scanned image or around it's perimeter. 🤩
    When I thought about all the different variables involved with my lumia, e.g. motor speeds, RGB brightness, multiple turrets; I started to realize how many controls would need to be wired up. It would require it's own console. DMX seemed like the obvious choice. I could run it manually from a DMX console and/or program DMX queues using Beyond. By queuing the lumia based on a timeline, that would free me up to "play" my abstracts that have midi assigned attributes for live manipulation. The only thing that would be canned here is the lumia and the base harmonically balanced abstracts.

    Since I am running each lumia "turrent" with individual RGB modules, I don't have to worry about pickoff flags/mirrors. I love the complexity of the old-school projectors but for ease and convenience, I am just going with the RGB modules until I have the room to expand in the future.

    Didn't have 'torture tubes' back in the day. Looks like old amp tubes, but distorted with a blow torch? So... you're rotating the tube from it's base, while passing the beam through both sides, I presume?
    That is exactly what I am doing. I absolutely love torture tubes (dimple glass) for you old pros ! The ultra creamy, almost smoke like movement gets me every time. It is one of my favorite lumia effects.


    Actually, that crystal ball has a special memory for me. I purchased one exactly like it from a duty free shop on a ferry to Ireland. A few years later, Cliff Richards used it during his European Tour. I stuck a beam out to center stage and Cliff passed the crystal ball in front of it, like a mirror ball coming from the palm of his hand.
    Funny ole world, ain't it?
    😎
    When I first saw a laser hit one of my wife's Swarofski Christmas ornaments, I knew I needed something like that in my lumia. For the time being, I don't have my crystal assembly install. It isn't ready yet. Work and other projects have slowed my progress here. For now though, the lumia is in working order. I don't have many pictures of it naked but here it is with all the clothes on and a sample of one of the torture tubes with an, ever-so-slight misaligned, RGB beam passing through it.

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    If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2023
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    Wow, looks great!

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