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Thread: Laser Visuals

  1. #31
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    I think you will find the 'fading' is the smoke concentration at that given area. More smoke = brighter line and vice versa!
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    My Brain urt's!

    Continuously in Awe! of (H)Al, the Photonlexicon Font of Complete Knowledge - The (H)Al'PL Database of complete puss that no one needs to know or ever trusts as he ain't really got a Scooby doo about now't!

  2. #32
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    Talking How much are these kits?

    How much can you get these kits for?
    Are they still available?

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by LASERGUY View Post
    How much can you get these kits for?
    Are they still available?
    No US dealers that I know of, although you might get lucky and find one on e-bay.

    I bought mine through LaserVisuals in England - you can check their web site (laservisuals.com) for latest prices and contact info - they will ship to the US.

    One of the regular PL forum members in England (Insanity) is in contact with their tech department to try to work through some issues several of us are having with the stepper motor driver (see earlier posts in this thread). Provided THAT gets worked out, the Poly-20 will be one cool addition to a laser projector!

    NOTE:
    The kit contains everything you need to mount the Poly-20 and control it MANUALLY with the provided circuit and potentiometer. If you want to add DMX control - which SHOULD allow you to select pre-programmed effects on the fly - you'll need to purchase their DMX "controller" (which is actually a DMX DECODER board), or you can also find similar products in the US through companies such as Northlight Systems, possibly cheaper. Once you have the DMX decoder, you'll still need the external DMX hardware that is capable of generating the DMX control signals.

    I said "SHOULD" earlier because the DMX control is the issue currenly being addressed with their tech support - it's a bit "flaky" right now....
    Last edited by Stuka; 08-20-2008 at 17:31.
    RR

    Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
    1979.
    Sweet.....

  4. #34
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    Talking Thanks

    Thanks for the information Stuka.

    I have seen these in many PL member projectors and was wondinering about them.
    They seem really cool.

    I will hit up LaserVisuals for latest pricing =)

  5. #35
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    No problem -
    the great majority of the folks that post here are more than willing to help whenever possible

    Yeah, the beam effects from the various grating patterns are VERY cool!!

    By the way, here's the link to Northlight Systems:

    http://home.att.net/~northlightsystems/home.htm

    They sell all kinds of DMX interface boards, and for us folks in the US, are probably a little bit cheaper than importing from elsewhere.
    Last edited by Stuka; 08-21-2008 at 11:56.
    RR

    Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
    1979.
    Sweet.....

  6. #36
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    Unfortunately after several emails I am no longer getting replies from LV regarding problems getting the wheel to work.

    So, is there anyone out there that understands these things better than my very limited knowledge?

    I have a Milford instruments DMX controller sending 0 - 5v signals to the LV stepper motor driver. At every position the wheel twitches although the voltages are stable. One of the DMX values locks the wheel and LV did tell me this shouldn't be the case, it should lock in every position.

    The main issue is that the wheel never returns to the same place. It has a magnetic positioning mechanism, but that is about all I know about it..

    If anyone understands this stuff I can probably give a bit more detail and pics...

    Mark

  7. #37
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    I would've thought that it might just be cheaper to buy the poly wheel on its own and get an old DMX light 2nd hand and take the driver board and stepper motor from there. Obviously making sure the wheel in question wasn't 'stepped' (e.g. colour wheel with no part colours option) It would just be a case of passing the position locator feedback to the board then, or rigging up a physical end stop to the polywheel.

  8. #38
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    Looks like I'll be sticking with my "backup" idea of using a model airplane servo and DMX driver board. Bummer.

    Thanks for your efforts Mark, all the same!
    RR

    Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
    1979.
    Sweet.....

  9. #39
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    Do you suppose we can get LaserWave to make us the diffraction wheel itself? I can easily make a little box that controls the stepper motor and set the displayed diffraction via USB. In fact, I have all the necessary hardware already to test it. I'm sure the same can also be applied to a PIC microcontroller to decode the DMX signal into stepper motor movements. A feedback loop (not all too expensive) can be added to the stepper motor, and some motors already have the position feedback built in. On the other hand, a servo would function just as nicely. Shouldn't be that hard... who's game?

    --DDL

  10. #40
    mixedgas's Avatar
    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
    Infinitus Excellentia Ion Laser Dominatus
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    The wheels come from here:

    http://www.creativelaser.de/

    World class electron beam mastered gratings.

    Nobody on that other side of the world could remotely copy Peter's work.
    They could make a poor quality contact holographic copy, but it would not even come close to the diffraction efficiency of Dr Ms work.


    Steve Roberts

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