Fb3 worth it?

[buffo]

"I just finished running a test using 5vdc regulated clean dc to "turn on" lasers got the stated outputs of all the lasers!! Then with the FB3 I got 1/2 to 3/4 output power!"

This is because the frame that was being displayed had very few points. The FB3 (like all commercial controllers I'm aware of) blanks the lasers between frames. There are sound reasons (both for safety and for consistency) why this is done. Bill has addressed this before, but I can't find the thread at the moment. I suspect he will reply here with more information, however, if you are genuinely curious.

I am not going to question why you did this

Maybe you should. Because once you understand why it was done, you might decide that your criticism is unwarranted.

As for me, I accept the fact that Bill (and Pangolin as a whole) knows a whole lot more about laser shows (and laser show controllers) than I ever will, so I don't question his wisdom here. When I wanted brighter points, I asked him what to do. DZ has already mentioned the proper method, at least for QM-2000 owners. (Promote frame to overhead beams zone and convert number of points to 250.) While I don't know if this applies to the FB3 or not, I *do* know that if you ask Bill (via the Pangolin contact form), you *will* get an answer.

I don't have a dog in the fight yet, but I would like to see this issue addressed.

It might be better if you did have a dog in the fight. Then you'd have something to look at. Put another way, you know of one Pangolin user who sold his projector because he couldn't figure out the problem. However, the person who has the projector now has confirmed that a problem *did* develop in at least one of the lasers. That, coupled with the fact that Yobresal didn't know about how to make points brighter using the FB3, suggests that he probably sold his unit prematurely. (That is, it could have been fixed and he would have been fine.) But he's got nothing to look at now, because he sold it. You don't have an FB3 either, so you are in the same boat. So now some more people that don't have an FB3 and don't understand the problem are all complaining about it. Even if Bill posted a solution here, you wouldn't be able to try it. (Laserguy216 is in a different situation, which I'll address below.)

"You'll just have to trust that Pangolin knows better than you do".. is a crock.

Are you saying that you are just as qualified as they are to implement the ILDA standard in a controller? Do you consider yourself experienced enough to address all the safety concerns? Really?

Tell me something then: Do you insist that the car companies explain to you how the engine control computer in your automobile is programmed? Do you demand to know why the spark advance is limited in the base model, but not in the high-line one? And are you really qualified to second-guess an automotive engineer on any of the *thousands* of choices they made when building the car?

What about when you get on a commercial airliner? Do you demand to see the maintenance logs of the aircraft, or the logbook of the pilot? We trust people who know better than we do EVERY SINGLE DAY. Why should this situation be any different?

OK, a laser show controller isn't an airliner, or a car. But it *is* a complex device. (Or at least, it can be. I admit that there are cheaper controllers on the market that do not have the features that Pangolin's products do.) And when it comes to safety, there are some things that are done that seem counter-intuitive. There are also counter-intuitive features that are designed to improve the performance (or longevity) of the hardware.

Case in point: Did you know that the QM-2000 has special logic that prevents the scanners from directly scanning a series of just a few points in a line? That's right, they are "exercised" in-between the points. Why? Because after years of research with Cambridge Technology, Pangolin discovered that these types of frames lead to premature scanner bearing failure. The solution was incorporated into the QM-2000. Note that few (if any) other controllers have this feature, but the Medialase Infinity series projectors all have a built-in hardware board that implements this SAME feature, so that if you use a controller other than the QM-2000, this board will still protect your scanners.

I actually saw this feature demonstrated on the ILDA cruise last year. It was during the Pangolin user's meeting, and it was mentioned in passing while talking about something else. I had never heard of the feature, which prompted Bill to put on a short demonstration.

What was really interesting was the fact that several of the experienced, professional laserists who were in attendance also did not know about this feature! So this is yet another case where Bill did know "more than the average person", and many, many Pangolin users have decided to trust in him. (And gained the benefit of longer-living scanners as a result.)

Give me a fully functional device from the factory, not one with it's balls cut off so to speak.. It's my hard-earned money and I'd want my money's worth.

Before you accuse the device of being anything less than "fully functional", you might want to take an oscilloscope to the product and verify it's functionality first. Because I have done this (for both the QM-32 and the QM-2000, which are the only Pangolin products I currently own), and I can say with certainty they are fully functional.

Can you honestly say that you have done the same thing with an FB3? Or are you simply talking someone else's word that there is a problem?

Edit: In the interest of full disclosure, I do seem to remember a post about one or two FB3 units that had weak output stages a long time ago... I think they had to be replaced under warranty. While it's unlikely to apply in this case, a test with an oscilloscope will prove it one way or the other rather quickly.

at this time of LOST fb3 on my system I get GODS ROD OF LIGHT....

Bill's point still stands. In the absence of signal, a laser should *NOT* come on at full power. This is in the ILDA standard. The fact that the laser does come on at full power is NOT Pangolin's fault. It's the fault of the laser manufacturer who was too lazy to implement the ILDA standard correctly.

it still looks as my usb sound card DAC gets more laser power out.

This is probably because the sound card does not blank the lasers in between frames. It is a continuous output device. And as I mentioned above, there are reasons why this is not a good idea. I'll defer to Bill to explain more on this, as it's well beyond my ability to explain coherently. (No pun intended.)

I think it's good practise to supply what is ultimately Pangolins entry level DAC hardware with some failsafes built in if thats what they deem to be good practise.

The beam-brightness issue is not so much a safeguard as it is a tool to make the show look better. If you start with one point, and then add another, and another, and so on, the points will all appear to get dimmer as you add more points. But not with Pangolin. The points will have more or less equal brightness. (Some other controllers do this as well.) And if you *want* a frame with only a few full-brightness points (and don't care that they dim when you add new ones), there is a solution. (See DZ's comment above.)

It's the lack of documentation that is the problem (imho) as it seems to be with the vast range of people posting here. If it was public domain how to 'unleash the beast' then these threads wouldn't exist.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill has posted before about this. I'm pretty sure it was even here on PL, though it's possible I'm remembering a post from the Pangolin forums. I agree that better documentation would be nice, but that applies to just about every laser show software out there. (Ever see the docs that come with Mamba 1.9? Or Full Auto? or even - choke - the Alphalite?) Pangolin's help files are awesome by comparison, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for even more improvement.

I've called with my problems, stated in the forums my problems with my hardware

I find it difficult to believe that you spoke with Bill when you called, as he has been out of the country for several weeks, and only recently arrived back in the States. That's why he always suggests that people use the contact form on the Pangolin website to report problems. Messages from that form will reach Bill no matter where in the world he is. I've always had very quick responses when using the contact form. (Did you use it?)

In closing, instead of starting a pissing contest here (which helps no one and dilutes the message), why not perform some tests, and then report the results of those tests to Pangolin? (You can also post them here.) Then, when you get a reply from Pangolin, try their suggestion and see if it works. Post your results. That way everyone learns...

Adam

[sugeek]

Ok, can you try these frames? Just display them one at a time and maybe just tell me what you see on the scope. Or a pic would be nice!

There you are sir!

[sugeek]

....

If you are not willing to help please don't post, we don't need to be lectured. I guess we have to live with the limitations of the FB3. If you also note I am helping somebody with an FB3 thus 0-Scope shots. I don't appreciate your mean tone, be nice buffo. Thank you DZ for your help!

-Adam

[norty303]

To be fair Adam, I'm not sure this issue is now just about the targetted beams, it seems to be about whether regular frames achieve all they could be.

Your car analogy is a little off, because people are not neccessarilly asking to know what goes on under the hood, they are simply enquiring why this car appears slower than some of the competitors (and even some other cars from the same manufacturer)

The beam-brightness issue is not so much a safeguard as it is a tool to make the show look better.

Some people would argue that a brighter show would look better.

I'm not knocking products, but it would seem that there does seem to be a legitimate question about why the voltage seems down and people have experienced lower powers using an FB3 over other DACs. The thread now seems to have taken a turn for the better because people are actually starting to do something scientific with the testing and narrowing down the parameters. Whilst I'm a big advocate of contacting Pangolin about things like this, it's very difficult to do what you might do on a communal thread in an email, and this may well end up drawing on the experiences of a few people.
If any solid conclusions are reached here then perhaps it time to direct Bill to this thread or at least send the relevant bits to him, after all, as he said recently, unless people draw their attention to their findings they can't do anything about it.
If people will actually stop the bashing, AND if people will instantly stop jumping on the defense, we may actually find out something useful. Even if we don't, we'll at least have a reference thread to direct people to when they ask the same questions in months to come.
How about it folks?

Another Adam

(too many damn Adams on this thread....)

[f22warzone]

There you are sir!

I Just wondering what I am looking at here.... sorry I am nub and don't know how to read a scope....
But is the solid wavy line labeled T in the middle the 0 voltage? And that would mean that in the first picture it is being sent 3v then jumping up to 4v and staying their then going back down to 3v? Or am I reading this wrong and that little jump am 5V? Just wondering as I have never seen the output from a scope before or actually seen a scope and would like to learn : )
Sorry if I'm not being constructive in the Discussion : ).

[norty303]

argument

Discussion :P_______

[DZ]

sugeek, it's not really pulse width modulation, it has to do with the tracks. If you look at the 1st pic, my guess is that it shows the frame that had 300 points and the 2nd pic shows the frame with 1 point. Basically, it's displaying the 1 point, then going off to handle other tracks and returning to display the one point again. It could be that the house keeping that it does takes about the same time as it would to display 20 points. Be right back, going to do some figuring.

[DZ]

Ok, so on the QM2K, I figure 12.24% of the time displaying a frame is used for handling other tracks and housekeeping. This measurement is true for a 300 point frame, I didn't deviate from that, yet. So, out of 300 points, ~37 points worth of time are used for something else. Now as you can see with just a single point, the on time is extremely low, so low that some very slow laser may not even illuminate! I think the main thing to understand is how the QM2K, and I asume the FB3, works. When you do, you'll know that you need more than 1 point for a targetted beam. Now, going back to the scope pics from sugeek, if each tick on the left side is a volt, it looks a lot like it's making 5V output. Can you change it to .5V per division or something even less?

[ElektroFreak]

This is because the frame that was being displayed had very few points. The FB3 (like all commercial controllers I'm aware of) blanks the lasers between frames. There are sound reasons (both for safety and for consistency) why this is done. Bill has addressed this before, but I can't find the thread at the moment. I suspect he will reply here with more information, however, if you are genuinely curious.
Maybe you should. Because once you understand why it was done, you might decide that your criticism is unwarranted.

As for me, I accept the fact that Bill (and Pangolin as a whole) knows a whole lot more about laser shows (and laser show controllers) than I ever will, so I don't question his wisdom here. When I wanted brighter points, I asked him what to do. DZ has already mentioned the proper method, at least for QM-2000 owners. (Promote frame to overhead beams zone and convert number of points to 250.) While I don't know if this applies to the FB3 or not, I *do* know that if you ask Bill (via the Pangolin contact form), you *will* get an answer.
It might be better if you did have a dog in the fight. Then you'd have something to look at. Put another way, you know of one Pangolin user who sold his projector because he couldn't figure out the problem. However, the person who has the projector now has confirmed that a problem *did* develop in at least one of the lasers. That, coupled with the fact that Yobresal didn't know about how to make points brighter using the FB3, suggests that he probably sold his unit prematurely. (That is, it could have been fixed and he would have been fine.) But he's got nothing to look at now, because he sold it. You don't have an FB3 either, so you are in the same boat. So now some more people that don't have an FB3 and don't understand the problem are all complaining about it. Even if Bill posted a solution here, you wouldn't be able to try it. (Laserguy216 is in a different situation, which I'll address below.)

Are you saying that you are just as qualified as they are to implement the ILDA standard in a controller? Do you consider yourself experienced enough to address all the safety concerns? Really?

Of course not, but I never blindly accept what anyone tells me. Period. Especially if it's because I'm just expected to trust Pangolin's judgement in the matter based on their overall reputation alone.. Not gonna happen. Everyone makes mistakes. Just not with my money is all. I think you might be reading too much into my resopnse.

Tell me something then: Do you insist that the car companies explain to you how the engine control computer in your automobile is programmed? Do you demand to know why the spark advance is limited in the base model, but not in the high-line one? And are you really qualified to second-guess an automotive engineer on any of the *thousands* of choices they made when building the car?

What about when you get on a commercial airliner? Do you demand to see the maintenance logs of the aircraft, or the logbook of the pilot? We trust people who know better than we do EVERY SINGLE DAY. Why should this situation be any different?

Because I have now been fortunate enough to be warned of a *potential* problem with a product that I have long been considering purchasing. I'm not currently looking to buy an airplane or a car. If I heard about potential problems with one when I was looking, you're damned right I would take a minute, do some reading online and rethink my options..

OK, a laser show controller isn't an airliner, or a car. But it *is* a complex device. (Or at least, it can be. I admit that there are cheaper controllers on the market that do not have the features that Pangolin's products do.) And when it comes to safety, there are some things that are done that seem counter-intuitive. There are also counter-intuitive features that are designed to improve the performance (or longevity) of the hardware.

Case in point: Did you know that the QM-2000 has special logic that prevents the scanners from directly scanning a series of just a few points in a line? That's right, they are "exercised" in-between the points. Why? Because after years of research with Cambridge Technology, Pangolin discovered that these types of frames lead to premature scanner bearing failure. The solution was incorporated into the QM-2000. Note that few (if any) other controllers have this feature, but the Medialase Infinity series projectors all have a built-in hardware board that implements this SAME feature, so that if you use a controller other than the QM-2000, this board will still protect your scanners.

I actually saw this feature demonstrated on the ILDA cruise last year. It was during the Pangolin user's meeting, and it was mentioned in passing while talking about something else. I had never heard of the feature, which prompted Bill to put on a short demonstration.

What was really interesting was the fact that several of the experienced, professional laserists who were in attendance also did not know about this feature! So this is yet another case where Bill did know "more than the average person", and many, many Pangolin users have decided to trust in him. (And gained the benefit of longer-living scanners as a result.)
Before you accuse the device of being anything less than "fully functional", you might want to take an oscilloscope to the product and verify it's functionality first. Because I have done this (for both the QM-32 and the QM-2000, which are the only Pangolin products I currently own), and I can say with certainty they are fully functional.

Can you honestly say that you have done the same thing with an FB3? Or are you simply talking someone else's word that there is a problem?

Certainly I am taking someone else's word.. Why would I buy a product after I see that these issues exist? Simply because everyone else says Pangolin is perfect in every way? Nah.. sorry. Everyone makes mistakes, and until I'm 110% sure there is no issue with FB3 (by following these threads) I'm not investing. This is NOT a slur against Pangolin. This is a potential customer being concerned (rightfully so).

Edit: In the interest of full disclosure, I do seem to remember a post about one or two FB3 units that had weak output stages a long time ago... I think they had to be replaced under warranty. While it's unlikely to apply in this case, a test with an oscilloscope will prove it one way or the other rather quickly.

Bill's point still stands. In the absence of signal, a laser should *NOT* come on at full power. This is in the ILDA standard. The fact that the laser does come on at full power is NOT Pangolin's fault. It's the fault of the laser manufacturer who was too lazy to implement the ILDA standard correctly.
This is probably because the sound card does not blank the lasers in between frames. It is a continuous output device. And as I mentioned above, there are reasons why this is not a good idea. I'll defer to Bill to explain more on this, as it's well beyond my ability to explain coherently. (No pun intended.)
The beam-brightness issue is not so much a safeguard as it is a tool to make the show look better. If you start with one point, and then add another, and another, and so on, the points will all appear to get dimmer as you add more points. But not with Pangolin. The points will have more or less equal brightness. (Some other controllers do this as well.) And if you *want* a frame with only a few full-brightness points (and don't care that they dim when you add new ones), there is a solution. (See DZ's comment above.)
As I mentioned earlier, Bill has posted before about this. I'm pretty sure it was even here on PL, though it's possible I'm remembering a post from the Pangolin forums. I agree that better documentation would be nice, but that applies to just about every laser show software out there. (Ever see the docs that come with Mamba 1.9? Or Full Auto? or even - choke - the Alphalite?) Pangolin's help files are awesome by comparison, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for even more improvement.

I find it difficult to believe that you spoke with Bill when you called, as he has been out of the country for several weeks, and only recently arrived back in the States. That's why he always suggests that people use the contact form on the Pangolin website to report problems. Messages from that form will reach Bill no matter where in the world he is. I've always had very quick responses when using the contact form. (Did you use it?)

In closing, instead of starting a pissing contest here (which helps no one and dilutes the message), why not perform some tests, and then report the results of those tests to Pangolin? (You can also post them here.) Then, when you get a reply from Pangolin, try their suggestion and see if it works. Post your results. That way everyone learns...

Seems that's what's happening here... I'm not sure why you see this as anything more than investigation.

Adam

I'm not saying there's a problem with Pangolin as a company or that they make second rate products, but to me it's not impossible that there could be a problem with one of their products. I'm not going to ignore this just because everyone perceives Pangolin as being flawless..

TBH I've been kind of excited about owning some Pangolin hardware, and the QM2000 is a long way off for me financially. The FB3 is a realistic starting point, but I don't want to spend that money and be disappointed like some of these people have been.

[DZ]

but to me it's not impossible that there could be a problem with one of their products.

Oh there's no doubt that problems and defects occur. The nice thing though, is that with 9000 Pangolin users, problems with the software are usually found quickly. Heck I found a huge bug last year that was quickly remedied.

TBH I've been kind of excited about owning some Pangolin hardware, and the QM2000 is a long way off for me financially. The FB3 is a realistic starting point, but I don't want to spend that money and be disappointed like some of these people have been.

Well the QM2K is worth it just for the free shows, in my opinion! And, as cool as QuickShow is, wait until Beyond comes out. We were given a taste of Beyond at SELEM, can't wait........ I'm think that Beyond is going to be only for the QM2K, I might be wrong though, if it's released for the FB3 also, then that would be fantastic.