Double Ended Diode, oo er misses

[laserLips]

If you remember my box it's f***ing massive which gives me pleanty of room to play before I decide to make my projector smaller.

I want upgrade my scanners to 50K from Eco20's.

I'd like ( for a while ) to have both sets of scanners in the box at the same time to see the effect of double projection.

I have some questions before I do this.

Regarding wireing:

1) If I have two sets of scanners comming of the ILDA connector, will the signal be split and hence make the singnal weaker for each, making the image 2 X smaller?

2) Would the difference in speed of the scanners (20,50)K cause problems? Do the scanners give feedback to the controller? If they do I guess a problem will exist.

Regarding the beam:

1) Which cube would I use to split the beam. I have some PBS cube from bridge, some for red and some for blue but guessing I'm going to loose shed loads using one of these. Is there a cube for a general 50/50 split?

I'm aware I'll going to loose tones of photons doing this but it's only an experiment.

I think I saw NEO lasers do this with one of their beasts, anyone know how they do it?

Graham

[buffo]

1) If I have two sets of scanners comming of the ILDA connector, will the signal be split and hence make the singnal weaker for each, making the image 2 X smaller?

No. Each scanner will receive the same signal. The scanners themselves may be tuned differently, so the sizes may not be equal, but that doesn't have anything to do with the wiring. (You may recall several posts talking about running 2 projectors off a single controller. You're basically doing the same thing.) If you want the same size image on both scanners, you'll need to adjust the input gain on the amps to match sizes.

2) Would the difference in speed of the scanners (20,50)K cause problems? Do the scanners give feedback to the controller?

The only problem will be the flicker you'll have. Remember you'll be running your controller at 20K, and that signal will go to both sets of scanners. So your fancy new 50K scanners will be flickering like hell.

There is no feedback from the scanner amps to the controller. But since you only have one controller, you'll need to set your point speed to that of your 20K scanners. (You can't run them much faster than 20K.) Thus it would be a waste to pair a set of 50K scanners with a set of 20 K scanners. You'd be better off just running two sets of 20K scanners.

Which cube would I use to split the beam. I have some PBS cube from bridge, some for red and some for blue but guessing I'm going to loose shed loads using one of these. Is there a cube for a general 50/50 split?

You don't need a polarizing cube, you just need a broadband 50/50 beam splitting cube. Edmund's should have them. Expect to loose 5-8% of your power tops.

Really though, a better solution would be to simply install the 50K scanners and then save the 20K units for some other project. Mixing 20K scanners with 50K scanners isn't going to work really well unless you have them on different controllers.

Adam

[laserLips]

Thanks Adam.

Not too fused about not using the 50 k to full potential.
It's just an experiment, and at the moment just a pipe dream.

[Things]

I read through that WHOLE post, forgetting that you wouldnt be able to run the 50K's at 50K and the 20's @ 20K. I dont think running 20K scanners at 50K would turn out very good :x

Its a good idea though, and I did the same kinda thing, double projection, by shining 2 lasers onto the same set of galvo's. the result is 2 identical patterns (Except the blanking was off on one of them, since one was a cheaper greenie, and a CNI. You can guess which one had the good blanking )

[White-Light]

Just out of interest, how do you rate Neo laser products - I noticed they seem to have a lot of divergence on the beam but that alone doesn't make them bad, obviously.

[allthatwhichis]

What I would do is get a DMX board for the 20Ks and still split the beam and use the DMX board to drive the 20K while using the blanked beam from your ILDA controller that is driving your 50Ks. You will not have the same pattern but beam shows are awesome this way if you get the DMX board working well.

[laserLips]

allthat, I've got the DMX board that came with the 20k's but Dave form LSP said it didnt hold very good patterns. Also a bit complcated for me I think.

I've had a look at the Edmunds beams splitters and they are too expensive for this.

There used to be a laser company on ebay called something like MTA Lasers. They used to sell HeNe lasers, liquide sky motor, mirrors / asorted optics and beam spliters, but I cant find them, anyone know what I'm on about?

EDIT:: Found them ... http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/mi-lasers

Cheers.