For Sale TTL RGB 30K "kit"

[buffo]

I got a DB25 M/F cord....cut off the end and there is only 7 cables in it Kinda surprised me as both sides to have 25 pins. What a waste of $8 too.

Yeah, you need a straight-through cable; all 25 pins. Sometimes they sell it as a parallel extension cable. What you actually got (the one with 7 wires) was a serial cable, and yeah, it's useless for laser projectors. Sorry you lost 8 bucks on it.

On the live Q, animations weren't looking soo hot, BUT I turned down the fade..whatever that does....from 100 to 0 and the images are flawless, except for the blanking.

Ok - it could be that you just had the size turned up so wide that your scanners couldn't take it. (Don't think that would be labeled "fade" though - are you sure you didn't adjust anything else like "size" or "gain"?) Check your scan speed too - that might be set too high. The pattern on the wall should be about 1/5 as wide as the distance from the scanners to the wall.

If you can see the animations and there is no distortion, then you don't need to tune the galvos. When you've got it set so that everything looks good, load up the ILDA test pattern, take a picture, and post it here. (Don't worry about the blanking - you can tell a lot from the test pattern even if the blanking isn't working.) Also measure how wide and how tall the pattern is, and then measure the distance from the scanners to the wall. Include those numbers in your post. (You are very close to being done, BTW.)

I'll double check the blanking cables

Let us know what happens...

Adam

[Dj_Nexus]

I haven't checked the blanking cables yet.

Here is a new video, one from last night with blue and green, not cocentric. The test patterns are at the end of the video. I would take a picture, but the frame rate doesn't catch the whole pattern

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9c15cLCmtVM

Also, I have to prop up the front about 5 inches up and to the right, as I face it, to project straight Nevermind, that was an easy fix Tune to where it starts after the amps turn on lol

[Dj_Nexus]

Ok, well I figure I won't play with it anymore until tomorrow. My new set of RGB DPSS should be here tomorrow

I'm going to cut off the end of the cord and start fresh with all same length wires I know which ones I need now :-D

I have a computer case (tower) for housing. Think that is efficient? I may put a fan in to keep everything cools because it will trap heat. I think that's a good idea.

Alignment...horayyy

Also....I wired the blue and green. 6 G+ and 19 G-, 7 B+, 20 B-. When I turned on the FB3 the scanners went crazy...didn't sound good actually. Like they were being overpowered and scanning wayyy too fast. I turned it off. What could this be?

Before I turned on the scanners, just aligning, the blue doesn't turn on with the blanking cables wired...both ways. It only turns on when they aren't connected. Clues?

[buffo]

The ground lead on your laser's blanking line does not go to the negative color signal! It goes to ground. (Pin 25)

The positive color signals are for lasers with standard blanking, and the negative color signals are for rare cases when the laser uses inverted blanking. (That is, + 5 volts turns the laser off, not on.) You shouldn't have anything connected to those negative color signal pins.

Connect one wire to the positive color signal and the other to ground. If the laser doesn't turn on at all, switch the wires and it will work.

A computer case doesn't have a lot of rigidity, but so long as your optical table doesn't flex inside the case you should be fine. A fan or two would be a good idea.

No idea what happened to your scanners. They should *never* sound like that. You did the right thing shutting it off. That sound is bad, and can ruin them.

Did you ever get a true 25-pin cable, or are you still using a hacked printer cable? Reason I ask is that if you're still using that old printer cable you need to be sure the signal ground pin wires aren't shorted together at the 25-pin end. (The printer cable standard puts signal ground on a lot of different pins, but they're all tied together on at least one end, and sometimes at BOTH ends of the cable.) If you have pins connected like that you'll get all sorts of strange effects, and the only way to tell for sure is to test all the pins against each other. That's a lot of permutations! Cables are cheap; get a straight-through 25 pin parallel cable and you'll be able to completely rule it out as a source of trouble...

Note that when aligning, it's helpful to have the scanners powered on but no signal applied. This centers them. (You can do the same thing by hooking up the ILDA cable to the controller and displaying a single white dot in the center of the screen.)

Adam

[buffo]

Just got home and was able to look at the youtube video you posted. (yeah, they block youtube at work as well - bastards!)

Based on the test pattern shown in the video, your scanners are tuned correctly. I think your problems are nothing more than either incorrect cabling, or bad connections.

Adam

[allthatwhichis]

I didn't see much of an issue either. The pattern looks real good, but you got the scanners from astroguy right? You should expect a good tuning on them.

I have had several cabling issues. What I recently did was to get a bus bar and make my scanner cable attachments on it. I may also do this with the laser blanking lead. It makes it easy to swap out components and you don't have to solder. I know you shouldn't need to swap parts out but I was/am having a greeny issue and was checking two sets of scanners. It works well for me as a clueless DIYer.

Just an idea for you until you get everything running perfect. It helped me work out my cabling issues.

[Dj_Nexus]

So I got my lasers But....I can't plug them in

The prongs are inside of the power supply which means I need a separate cord for each, something I didn't know wasn't included Thought it would just have the cable coming out and just plug it in, but nooooo couldn't be that easy. I have to buy extension cords now Ahhhhhhh what a waste of money.

The analogue modulation wires. There is one end inside of the unit. The other side is screwed down. I'm assuming I unscrew that end and use that for the blanking

Also, so there will be 5 wires all going to 25 for ground?

[buffo]

The analogue modulation wires. There is one end inside of the unit. The other side is screwed down. I'm assuming I unscrew that end and use that for the blanking

The end that is "screwed down"... By any chance, do you mean that it's connected to the +5 volt terminal on the input to the driver? If so, then yes, you disconnect it from that terminal and connect it to your ILDA connector. (Same thing with the ground lead, which should also be connected to the power input terminal on the driver, on the GND lug.)

They sometimes ship lasers this way so that the laser will turn on when you first power it up for testing. (It uses the 5 volt input power to the driver to turn the modulation on at full power.)

Also, so there will be 5 wires all going to 25 for ground?

Yes. 3 wires from the lasers (ground wires from the blanking circuits for each laser), and 2 wires from the scanner amps (ground wires from the signal inputs for each amp).

Adam

[Dj_Nexus]

I'll get working soon. I've been sick with strep....as with my 5 other friends Drunken bottle spinning is never good when someone is holding out info on an illness lol...

I feel much better today though, amoxicillin works wonders.

Yes, the wires from the lasers are in the terminal.

I was hoping the height of the new lasers was the same height as the dichro and scanners But that would have been too easy.

And this 200mW 671 DPPS looks like it's a 5mW laser pointer..... :-\ Do they need time to warm up because it looks like it's getting brighter....

[drlava]

I'll get working soon. I've been sick with strep....as with my 5 other friends Drunken bottle spinning is never good when someone is holding out info on an illness lol...

I feel much better today though, amoxicillin works wonders.

I hope at least you didn't get it from kissing a guy

What power 660nm would you need? I could give you a good deal on a 100mW one.