New to lasers, looking for learning resources

[TiffanyTiffTiff]

Hi all

I'm the proud new owner of a Unity Raw 1.7 ILDA laser, I got the FB3QS controller as well for active control. I've followed all the videos Pangolin has available for Quickshow and those videos barely scratch the surface of the software or lasers in general. I was referred here by https://www.reddit.com/r/Laserist/ by the one, the only, Brad. The best advice i was given was "go play with it" and over the course of doing that ive got some questions. I feel bad always pestering Brad so here I am, pestering all of you instead

The big thing im looking for is resources that explain at length how to properly set up and configure a laser, from both a literal setup as well as a safety standpoint. The tutorial pangolin has here it only discusses the scanner speed and color shift, as well as touches on Geometric correction. Plus if i follow the guide explicitly it tells me to increase my scanner speed beyond what the manufacturer recommends. There's also things like the "Blanking Shift Test" pattern does not look right, or I know for a fact the color balance is off, as well as it seems like i get three brightness settings, bright af, semi bright, and fucking dull + wrong colors, but I cannot find good documentation anywhere about how to fix any of these or even what the "right" way its supposed to look is. I could just be googling wrong, but if I search for "laser projector setup" its like image projectors not lasers, and if i search ILDA laser _____ all i get is manufacturer pages that are not helpful.

I know I didn't buy the highest quality laser so its not going to look like a $10,000 Clubmax something, but I know im not setting this laser up 100% right and i dont want to break my investment before i even get to show it to anyone, any help is appreciated.


Took some photos to try to show you what I mean. My Camera cant set its shutter speed to 1/25 so Im using 1/30, if parts of the pattern are missing thats why

https://imgur.com/a/aE4v5Yy

[james]

Scanners are a weird kind of thing. They are dynamic. They have mass. They need to accelerate and decelerate. Scanner amps have a feedback loop. The rotational position of the scanner is a signal sent back to the amp for control. This process takes some time. IOW, sending a signal to the scanners to be at a location is not instantaneous. So the color signals that control laser intensity must be slightly delayed to properly align with the location of the scanners (in time). In a wave file at a sample rate of 48KHz, it's typically 5 samples.