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Thread: SCANPRO20K + DMX board from lasershowparts

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Austin Texas since 1976
    Posts
    250

    Arrow just built a scanpro20/DMX laser show projector from the lasershow.com @ ebay

    Well the kit works great but the PDF user errata and instructions are just down right horrifically vague. The seller contact Dave is nice, but it kind of sucks paying $60 for shipping from what I thought was Australia and receiving a drop ship from Shanghai, China, I Pray I never need the 1 year warranty replacement.
    OK that said cons I had some issue with the small mirror area and its being 90% reflective had light beam left to right on ceiling vertically upward while projecting out horizontally and I found it very hard to adjust out that issue. This is wasted laser energy not being projected to intended target my fixed laser mount and in ability to skew horizontally and fine adjust deck height are probably contributing factors. The wiring requires some minor modifications (swapping leads in connector to DMX board) and allows room for mistakes that could toast non reverse protected galvo drive boards, and the connectors although pin spacing correct are not the same connector body style, which is a minor annoyance. These boards require additional heat sink area and without it are smoking hot.The setup galvo kit comes with a cute little compact 90-240vac switching supply. I was not able to use blanking signal to my single green laser to eliminate interletter trace in text, as when displaying the DMX board's pre-programmed animated patterns, I lost portions of demo patterns intended for other red blue color lasers,I wonder if I could somehow tie all 3 blanking inputs to drive for one laser ??? anyone out there with ideas on this please advise!!.If you have no familiarity with orientation of laser to galvo mirrors for a mono laser setup and or dichroic mirror configuration for a rgy 2 laser setup you will find your self lost or on learning curve as I was as there is ZERO info to this effect supplied with the kits. All that said I slapped this stuff together with a 60-80mw 532 mw green laser module and ran through the pre-programmed images and I was modestly impressed, but soon realized that to really do much of any original laser image design that a ILDA usb interface and basic starter software is going to start at just over $300 and up and anything really comprehensive is going to hit $700-$900 and way up from that at Pangolin ETC.. I am still pretty clueless on how to use the DMX512 interface that came with my setup it claims to have 14 DMX channels available and has a 10bit 512 address setup dip switch I am way out on learning curve on utilizing this interface as the sparse PDF manual is horrifically vauge in this area! My concern is that you might be able to buy a complete lasershow projector a basic one starting for what the seller wants for these boards at ebay but if you bid low and often they might be had for a fair price. If I knew what I know now I would have saved for a higher scan rate kit but I am still OK with outcome if these were locally distributed and about 25-30 percent cheaper due to local shipping it would be a good deal instead of just ok. I will add that I did not need to adjust the galvos and from what I gather this pretuning and serial number matching of galvos to drive boards is a good thing after reading up on galvo tuning this procedure can take 1-4 hours for the modestly initiated and the inept experimenter can mistune the 4 pots in seconds and render the boards never operable again and can even toast the galvos so if you build a laser show projector from scratch or upgrade yours make sure you do some serious research on tuning before touching these adjustments. its probably best to just leave them alone since they are pretuned.


    P.S.

    I Have a very dangerous start on a massive DPSS laser and am ironing details to make functional. I have just purchased some nice 12-14 od 532 1064 808 nanometer protective goggles, a 100 watt water cooled coherent 808nm laser module, a new transmission cooler for an auto, a 6 volt water pump, a wavelength temperature controller, need a side pumped yag rod and optics to collimate, have some laserscope lenses and mirrors a set of four for 1064nm, I am just about to receive a set of four(only need one want to sell some or all the others at $200 each) they are very expensive thermally conductively mounted aligned KTP crystals for a Clarion/coherent VPC medical laser and a KTP heater assembly. I am going to try to query a physics professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who I cold called several weeks ago for a prospective design for as big a 532 nm dpss laser as I can pull off 5 watts would make me happy but I am hoping for 10-15 watts.

    Any referrals to members with skill sets to put me in ball park or point in right direction on my project would be really cool of any of you. I am about 7-10 days away from receiving a low voltage 100amp linear power supply to drive my laser module with and then I will hopefully gather momentum on collimating laser on yag rod optics and cooling design of first stage and heating and optics design on doubling stage. All my regards from Frank Dreaming of day time viewable laser projector on low reflective backdrop of course.

    Also I saw a 1 kilowatt h20 cooled 808nm laser this week on ebay starting at a grand it had ten 100watt bar lasers mounted in a water cooled assembly with an optical window. GEMMINY! You can't buy a gun on ebay but you can buy lasers that are REALLY DANGEROUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Neighbor pissses you off you can just collimate the thing and burn the tires off his car at a couple hundred feet with an invisible Infra Red Laser. Just Kidding lets keep the peace!

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Austin Texas since 1976
    Posts
    250

    Default

    Dear Highvolt, please advise on edit 2 how you achieved combined image and text in your post?, also please advise how you dealt with blanking issues using one laser as I had truncated animations where parts were apparently intended to be shown in a tricolor rbg format so my green images were only partially displayed when blanking signal was connected, oh BTW my chinese friend says chinese text says welcome, hello, etc
    Also please give switch settings which displayed moon as I was unable to display that image I had a animated ostrich as a start up display Thanks From Frank!!
    Last edited by frank_1257; 06-10-2008 at 02:52. Reason: typo errors

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Austin Texas since 1976
    Posts
    250

    Default Poor man's smoke machine

    I Just read today that citronella burning mosquito repellent coils make a good poor man's smoke machine to make laser beams viewable via suspended particles in air when used indoors of course. Please use caution to not start fires or create hazardous concentrations citronella or smoke triggering allergies or asthma, sounds like doing this in a garage with a non-flammable floor that can be easily ventilated or evacuated is a good idea!! Remove all combustibles liquids gases and materials first please!

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Austin Texas since 1976
    Posts
    250

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    Dear XNTRIX, please try addressing switches from other end of row reverse of what you currently are trying when set to sound mode only the led will flash, thats the furthest switch from led off next 3 on all the rest off if memory serves me correctly.
    Last edited by frank_1257; 06-10-2008 at 03:00. Reason: typo

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Scottish Highlands
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    232

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    Hi Frank,
    Thanks for your commemts and suggestions! I was just expecting the LED to be lit for some reason. Actually all is well - only problem is green doesn't seem to want to blank. Just shuts off when blanking is connected. Couple of pics of layout attached.
    All the best, David
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails scan1.jpg  

    scan2.jpg  


  6. #16
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Scottish Highlands
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    232

    Default

    Hi Frank,
    Thanks for your commemts and suggestions! I was just expecting the LED to be lit for some reason. Actually all is well - only problem is green doesn't seem to want to blank. Just shuts off when blanking is connected. Couple of pics of layout attached.
    All the best, David

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Austin Texas since 1976
    Posts
    250

    Default I was wondering how you are dealing with blanking issues in you rgy design

    Did you refit an old projector or build from scratch I need a dichroic mirror and mount as you have pictured if you have a source for same, would kill baby rabbits for one as pictured.
    my mono green laser from aziz looks exactly like yours with no blanking connected all the images appear all parts but as scanpro20 seems designed for rgb lasershow when my green blanking is connected my DMX board test patterns chinese text interletter tracing which connects letters disappears and is perfect and is correctly blanked but animations only show up green portions. seems like my only fix short of a firmware chip fix on dmx board is going to be to some how use a A or B or C non blanking logic circuit that would turn laser on when any of 3 laser is supposed to be on and would blank laser when all three laser blanked at same time, this obviously would not allow for any intensity variation which would make a really effective mono laser combining circuits design somewhat difficult to deal with intensity variations? anyone out there with solution would be a godsend!
    Now your blanking issue I had no documents on my aziz chinese laser 532 module like yours I had same problem I looked at the lasers power supply PCB and I thought the outer edge blanking terminal was ground but it was actually the blanking signal and after reversing I achieved blanking as above. Simply test blanking of your laser by putting spare blue laser DMX pigtail on laser and touching two leads together laser should go on and off, unless blanking inverted somehow it should work unless dmx blanking drive is fried try another blanking color swap laser colors and see if it blanks for blue or red or hit on dave or ajiii for more ideas? best wishes Frank!
    Last edited by frank_1257; 06-10-2008 at 16:41. Reason: typos

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
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    3,702

    Default

    From memory those greens have non standard blanking. Perhaps the best option would be to use a die4drive on the green diode
    KVANT Australian projector sales
    https://www.facebook.com/kvantaus/

    Lasershowparts- Laser Parts at great prices
    https://www.facebook.com/lasershowparts/

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Charleston, SC
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    2,147,489,446

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by frank_1257 View Post
    I Just read today that citronella burning mosquito repellent coils make a good poor man's smoke machine to make laser beams viewable via suspended particles in air when used indoors of course.
    Citronella candles? Yuck!

    Just go to walmart and buy a fog machine for $35. It will be more than enough for an indoor show. Fog machines are cheap.

    Adam

  10. #20
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Scottish Highlands
    Posts
    232

    Default Dichro mounts etc

    Frank - no need for small furry animals to die! That mount is made by Laserwave. I got mine through Rob (Stanwax) in the UK, but it might be cheaper for you to go directly. It certainly made aligning the beams much easier. The projector is built from scratch, though all the metal panels are re-cycled from other bits of equipment.
    Dave - thanks for comment - the green blanking does work sometimes. Actually my next step was going to use a die4drive as you suggested.
    Thanks, Regards - David

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