To the laser show software companies

[The_Doctor]

Bill, will these Pangolin 30K scanners work with a Medialas Widemove drive board? If so I think you have got another guaranteed sale. As soon as I can afford it, anyway...

[mixedgas]

Bill, email sent about two pairs. I have 6850 and Turbotrack amps.
What would I need for connectors at the Galvo end?

Steve

[Pangolin]

Will the Compact 506 connect to a TurboTrack?

For sure, yes. No question about it.

Bill, will these Pangolin 30K scanners work with a Medialas Widemove drive board? If so I think you have got another guaranteed sale. As soon as I can afford it, anyway...

I'm not sure about that. I heard about Wide Move, and Joachim sent me a pair during early development (many many years ago). Back then they used a hall effect sensor for position. In the case of Compact 506, the position sensor is optical, and the signal level and polarity are compatible with normal Cambridge and Cambridge Copies. But I am not familiar enough with what eventually wound up on the market as Wide Move to know for sure.

Bill, email sent about two pairs. I have 6850 and Turbotrack amps.
What would I need for connectors at the Galvo end?

Steve

As shown on the data sheet, the connector we use (for space reason) is called a "Mini CT connector". This is what Cambridge uses on many of their scanners, but it's a complete coincidence that it's called "Mini CT". This is the name Tyco chose to give to it. So you'd need to get one of those connectors and such.

Bill

[The_Doctor]

I'm not sure about that. I heard about Wide Move, and Joachim sent me a pair during early development (many many years ago). Back then they used a hall effect sensor for position. In the case of Compact 506, the position sensor is optical, and the signal level and polarity are compatible with normal Cambridge and Cambridge Copies. But I am not familiar enough with what eventually wound up on the market as Wide Move to know for sure.

Thanks. From what I've seen in past threads here, the WideMoves may be closely related to EyeMagics. Hall effect sensors might be why the Widemoves had an objectionable magnet-like hysteresis in small movements around resting positions. There's plenty of contentious debate here.
http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...as-scanner-set

EDIT:
I have seen many posts over recent months saying that Pangolin's scanners lack drivers, or aren't ready. But those who have seen them in action know otherwise, apparently. I guess not being tied to one driver is a good thing, not a lack, at all. So what we really need is a list of drivers known to get the best out of them, and any special notes relating to each, so we can make our best shot at a choice.

[norty303]

Ok, the BIG question, will the 506's work with a DT30/40/40W amp?
I can think of a serious number of people that might have a 'no brainer' upgrade path there.

[DZ]

For sure, yes. No question about it.

Interesting! Are these available from a distributor yet?

[mixedgas]

I just had a talk with Justin, they are coming soon.

Steve

[mixedgas]

Ok, the BIG question, will the 506's work with a DT30/40/40W amp?
I can think of a serious number of people that might have a 'no brainer' upgrade path there.

I have 4 different amps here, including DT. I just called and requested a sample/offered to pay for a pair. I'm waiting for a further response from Justin. That should take a couple of weeks.

Steve

[sugeek]

I have 4 different amps here, including DT. I just called and requested a sample/offered to pay for a pair. I'm waiting for a further response from Justin. That should take a couple of weeks.

Steve

I cannot think of a better person to test, I hope they follow through.

Adam

[Pangolin]

I have seen many posts over recent months saying that Pangolin's scanners lack drivers, or aren't ready. But those who have seen them in action know otherwise, apparently. I guess not being tied to one driver is a good thing, not a lack, at all. So what we really need is a list of drivers known to get the best out of them, and any special notes relating to each, so we can make our best shot at a choice.

I have tried to express the complete situation here. My own personal name is printed on the silkscreen of award-winning drivers that people have in their possession right now and have been using for the past 20 years or so. So it's not a matter of not knowing how to make drivers. It's only a matter of motivation, coupled with the law of time management -- the most important point being that "doing one thing means not doing another"...

Those who know me should understand that I am a very focused person and I try to spend my time in ways that it will help the maximum number of people in the world. The world already has a solution for controlling scanners (be they our scanners or anyone else's scanners). What the world did not have are cheap great scanners, or 60K scanners that cut the heat by a factor of four while also cutting the space by a factor of three. These simply did not exist a short while ago. And there are medical scanning and imaging applications that simply can not be done right now because of the limitations of conventional galvanometers. Other medical scanning applications are stymied by the limitations of conventional galvos. So by spending my time working on the new galvanometers, I indeed help the greatest number of people in the world.

Now that the actual scanner development is nearly completed, I can turn my attention to scanner drivers. In fact, as I wrote, we have a DSP-driver that we showed at ILDA. This will be used for our Saturn series of scanners. We will also make a smaller analog driver in the future for these Compact scanners, and also make it in such a way that it is useable with the Saturn series.

As for production, Saturn 5 has been in production since January. It is usable by a variety of amplifiers, as long as the amplifier is modified to work with our position sensor, whose signal strength is much higher and whose polarity is the opposite of other scanners. And we have a number of Compact 506 scanners in stock right now, and these are usable on normal drivers with no modifications (but will work better with modifications).

So that's the long answer regarding our own drivers.

Ok, the BIG question, will the 506's work with a DT30/40/40W amp?
I can think of a serious number of people that might have a 'no brainer' upgrade path there.

Yes there is no question that our Compact 506 can be used with any of these amplifiers. No question about it. As I wrote above and previously, ideally some small component changes are needed to adapt the output driver amplifier to our coil impedance, which is different from conventional galvos.

Interesting! Are these available from a distributor yet?

Up until now we've only worked to get OEMs setup to design and build these into laser projectors en mass. We haven't really setup any distributors per se. However, it does make sense that there should be someone who can deal with customers who want to buy single pieces. It's a matter of finding someone who could reliably provide this service.

I just had a talk with Justin, they are coming soon.

Steve

Yes, Justin is being conservative ;-) but also expressing a larger picture. It is our plan to have complete scanning systems including the amplifiers deliverable FROM STOCK in 2014. But in the mean time we have a limited number of scanners themselves that we can sell and provide samples to OEMs as the opportunities permit. Candidates for initial deliveries are OEMs (for obvious reasons) and perhaps some individuals who have amps that are largely ready to go.

Bill