Cheapest DAC?

[absolom7691]

I see. Thanks James! I think I might start on one of those this weekend. I'll post pics of my progress as I go along so any other newbies who might be afraid to try this might learn or find the strength to wield a soldering iron.

[James Lehman]

Cool! What documentation are you going by?

There is a lot of it here.

Are you using Dean C. Hammonds' original design with a 5.1V zener or the slightly modified version with the -5V regulator?

NOTE: Only 1 zener is required for any number of channels.

Did you know there is a drawing of it in the dxf directory of the LaserBoy download?

James.

[absolom7691]

Not sure yet. I am looking over everything right now. I have one other question for you (seeing as that you have built several of these from the looks of the posts) if I was trying to do this, cheap as I could do it, could I get away with using a regular 2 channel card (stereo) and just use XY? This is more of an experiment than anything else. I want to see if I can use an old motherboard I have that is collecting dust and turn it into a test box for galvos and such. Obviously, I am speaking of the onboard audio device. This is also to prove to a friend of mine that a 466MHz Celeron is still useful, though I haven't quite found a use for it yet.

[James Lehman]

Yes, but you would have no blanking. But if all you want to do is test galvos, you don't really need that anyway. You still need to treat the signals the same way. You tap the signal right out of the DAC, before the output decoupling cap. You mix some negative voltage with the signal to get it to idle at zero volts and you give it enough gain to drive your scanners to whatever scan angle you want.

James.

[absolom7691]

You're the best. Thanks James! BTW, LaserBoy ROCKS!!!!

[James Lehman]

Thank you very much! That puts a real big smile on my face!

In main menu 'b' option '8' allows you to split a 6 channel LaserBoy wave into stereo XY (which is what you need) and a set of mono waves; one for each, R, G, B & I. If all you have is a stereo sound device, you will not be able to play 6 channel waves at all. You'll find the split waves in the folder "split" inside of the waves folder in the LaserBoy folder!

James.