I'm clearly missing something here

[araugh]

This must be a simple issue, but I'm just lost on it. If you can help me out it would be greatly appreciated and I am sure you'll get a good laugh out of my being obtuse here.

I'm working a number of laserworld projectors. Despite their reputation here, these units are solidly built and seem to be up to spec for guaranteed power and optical loss. My problem is in control software. I'm currently using the latest version (01-06-2010) of Phoenix Live to control them via ILDA using the basic interface box. When I use the hardware test feature to take power readings I'm getting great power readings and everything looks as it should. Once I turn on live though with a single beam at full brightness I'm ~60% lower. I know the instrument is capable of producing well, but for whatever reason I have something set incorrectly in Phoenix or something. Any advice on what it is I'm doing wrong? Thanks.

[-bart-]

I'm not particularly familiar with phoenix, but what if you put several beams on top of each other in one frame ?

Most if not all laser software is frame based. It could be possible that the number of points in one beam is below the minimum number of point in one frame threshold, and the software makes up for this by adding extra blanked points.

Some hardware takes some short fixed time in between frames, in this time the laser is off.
Usually not a problem, but if the number of points in a frame becomes low enough, this can result in reduced brightness.

Modulation induced dimming might then reduce the power even further.

[araugh]

I had the same issue with a number of patterns, but I'll definately try your fix. Thanks.

[-bart-]

Additionally, some of laserworld projectors are known to have single ended inputs.
Most ilda hardware is known to have differential outputs.
So an interface incompatibility could be an issue here too.