Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 11 to 18 of 18

Thread: General Scanning G124-PD

  1. #11
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    1 hr from everything in SoCal
    Posts
    2,753

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    Well it seems that General Scanning has completely discontinued the old G-series scanners, including the G115 and G124. That's kind of a shame... Like some of the others reported on this forum, it was actually the very first real scanners I ever got my hands on, because they were less expensive than G120s, and because I could build my own driver for them.
    The end of an era... I have such fond memories of the 124s. I bought my pair from MWK to replace their GAL-3 steppers. Stepping up to the 124s was a huge improvement. I used them with my Laser Illusion's PC Lite DAC. I could draw basic graphics and even text! They were so much fun! The good old days!
    If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Orlando, FL - USA
    Posts
    1,770

    Default

    WOW, MWK... I remember speaking with them on the phone. They were in business long before the days of the internet.

    I'm not able to find a web site associated with them. Are they still in business?

    Bill

  3. #13
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    1 hr from everything in SoCal
    Posts
    2,753

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    WOW, MWK... I remember speaking with them on the phone. They were in business long before the days of the internet.

    I'm not able to find a web site associated with them. Are they still in business?
    Sadly, they haven't been in business for many many years. I worked there for about 8 months in '97. After MWK closed, Mike Kenny used to sell a bunch odds and ends on ebay under the name hene1 but last I checked, there were no auctions going. You can see their old website on the wayback machine (prior to 2005) if you're feeling nostalgic I remember the catalogs they would send out. Martin Hasa was the graphic designer for the catalogs. I have never seen someone that skilled with CorelDraw. Downright amazing!
    If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.

  4. #14
    mixedgas's Avatar
    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
    Infinitus Excellentia Ion Laser Dominatus
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    A lab with some dripping water on the floor.
    Posts
    9,890

    Default

    I have a "Reserve Stock" of G-124s for four purposes... One, When I am old and grey they will still work. Two. Open loop has its place in teaching and research. Three, I have enough of them to recreate a four head RGBY projector some day... Four, One G-124 can replace eight actuators in a beam table if you know what your doing.

    G124s are really great for teaching how to make optical sensors for the robotics team I mentor. They needed a ranging system to map the inside of a pipe, so a combination of a camera, a galvo, and 5 mW of green works great for triangulation ranging in the 0-2 meter region where other types of accurate sensors simply blew the allocated budget. . Add a burst grating to that and the students did some amazing things with just the images and Excel, while using the Galvo for the initial distance. A hotel room toilet used for a late night calibration before the competition added a few new "dimensions" to their programming, when one found a quick way to store a calibration curve.

    The advantages of a galvo over a servo become obvious quickly. Servos hog current, slightly oscillate at all times, and do maybe 0.4 degree resolution on a good day. Let me clarify one thing. To hold calibration we found we needed to keep the servos on, drawing battery. The T-bar is just as precise as a instrument grade meter movement, so the galvo could be powered down.

    I've never broken a T-bar on a G-124, can't say that about a G-120. Besides, they are different metals in some cases, old man Montague used Nitinol on some of the longer ones.

    One day the local surplus place had nine OEM G-124s new in the factory bags. I think if I could have hid my smile better, I would have had them for far less then fifty Dollars. That was around 2015, so they were still used in some medical imagers.

    Bill,

    You might want to rethink open loop. There is not much use for the R-4 or Gm20 because of cost of manufacture , but there is a small market for an open loop G-124 if you can drive the cost down to say 25 TO 50$ a unit minus amps. Then just use a LM3886 to drive them. Next week I have to float a tiny extrusion nozzle at 15 KV DC and shake it, and I'm using a G-120 open loop for that.. Given the industry sponsoring that research, the market could easily be 10-20K pcs per year.

    Over the years I've seen more G-330, both open and closed loop, out in the wild, then anything else GSI... There might be a reason for that. You'd have to pry my cold, dead, hands off of the three open loop G-330 I still have, as you can wrap beams around the room with them.

    End of an Era.

    PS, The 506 looks really good with the mounting nub.

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 05-03-2020 at 08:54.
    Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
    I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
    When I still could have...

  5. #15
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    1 hr from everything in SoCal
    Posts
    2,753

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by mixedgas View Post
    You might want to rethink open loop. There is not much use for the R-4 or Gm20 because of cost of manufacture , but there is a small market for an open loop G-124 if you can drive the cost down to say 25 TO 50$ a unit minus amps. Then just use a LM3886 to drive them. Next week I have to float a tiny extrusion nozzle at 15 KV DC and shake it, and I'm using a G-120 open loop for that.. Given the industry sponsoring that research, the market could easily be 10-20K pcs per year.
    At the risk of turning this into a "dreaded" Pangolin thread, the vrad actuators are still available from ScannerMax. Not sure how the specs of the vrad 506 stack up to the G-124s but they definitely fit an open loop niche. I was actually looking at a pair of these for an open loop squiggle generator.

    https://www.scannermax.com/products/actuators/
    If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Cleveland Ohio
    Posts
    2,599

    Default

    I use to drool over the mwk catalog. Always wanted their green hene and their argon lasers. Sadly it was not to be. Meredith Instruments showed pity on me and sent me a couple 1mw hene which I promptly used on speaker mirror scanners. That was what hooked me. I destroyed the first one on a neon sign transformer. I’ll never forget how exciting it was the first time I saw a dot of light flash out of the tube.

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Charleston, SC
    Posts
    2,147,489,446

    Default

    +1 for drooling over the MWK catalog!

    I still have one of the MWK lissajous generators packed away in a box somewhere. That's about all I could ever afford from them...

    Adam

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    Colorado USA
    Posts
    793

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    Hi guys,

    Well it seems that General Scanning has completely discontinued the old G-series scanners, including the G115 and G124. That's kind of a shame... Like some of the others reported on this forum, it was actually the very first real scanners I ever got my hands on, because they were less expensive than G120s, and because I could build my own driver for them.

    Once they were officially discontinued, some customers started approaching us. They initially ask us if we could build one for them, but we don't have much interest in making an open-loop scanner, when it's actually easier to make a closed loop scanner these days. Back when I first started, optical position sensors weren't a gleam in anyone's eye, while today they're pretty commonplace.

    Other than their use in laser lightshow equipment from the past, current uses include paint removal (laser cleaning) and some medical systems, including hand-held systems. I made a web page dedicated that discusses how someone might retrofit our Compact 506 into the same location as a G124. I was a bit surprised to find that the height was really similar, and -- as a test, we 3D printed a kind of "plug" onto the back-end of our C506.

    Is there anyone here on PL who is still using the old G124?

    https://www.scannermax.com/scannerma...ries-scanners/


    Best regards,


    William Benner

    I still have a pair (or two) of the G-120PD scanners but have always used a DIY version of the LaserMedia closed-loop driver with them which performed better than the GS driver. I also still have my original G-115 open-loop galvos that got me started in the planetarium laser show business. All of these still work when I fired them up a few years ago.

    Good times, eh?
    ________________________________
    Everything depends on everything else

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •