Pangolin FB3 or other quality DAC

[haymaker]

Hi,

I sold my FB3 a while ago as I never had time to use it but now, I have been asked to do something with my lasers at a family wedding. If anyone in the UK is looking to sell at a reasonable price, please let me know.

I had hoped to wait until the holiday sale from Pangolin and upgrade to Beyond or wait for the "FB4" but bride and groom are refusing to wait until then.

Adrian

[haymaker]

Just bumping as I am still looking for a DAC. With the fresh talk of the FB4, not sure if I should buy an FB3 at the moment unless the price is too good to resist.

Alternatively, if anyone in the London area is willing to loan / hire for a couple of days, or knows of a company that does for a reasonable charge, please let me know.

[Pangolin]

Hi Adrian,

You can tell that Pangolin is ran by a technical guy and not a marketing genus because of the names we come up with for products. Some of the names are great (I am particularly proud of BEYOND) but some, not so great (like Compact 506 instead of "SuperScanner 5000")...

With this in mind and from the nature of your post, I can see that we've injected confusion into our own marketplace, by discussing "FB4".

The "iPhone 4" was indeed a replacement for the iPhone 3. Sony's "PS4" was indeed be a replacement for Sony's Play Station 3. So, because of the behavior of other companies, I guess it is only natural for consumers to assume that "FB4" must be a replacement for the FB3.

I can assure you that FB4 is not a replacement for FB3, and that FB3 will remain THE HARDWARE PLATFORM for QuickShow and the main hardware platform sold with BEYOND.

FB4 is something completely new. It is a new philosophy, designed to give people a brand new way in which they experience laser products. Within the Pangolin product line, FB4 will be used IN ADDITION TO the other great Pangolin products you already use, not instead of...

Your posts and pause should, in fact, give us inspiration to come up with a new name for FB4. After all, FB4 is only an internal name, like "Chicago" was the internal name of Windows 95, or "Daytona" was the internal name of Windows NT 3.5. (See the complete list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...soft_codenames )

We'll have to give this some more thought. However, it's not easy to come up with revolutionary names to match the vision or impact of next-generation products. At least it's not easy for me...

Bill

[Lasermad]

" it's not easy to come up with revolutionary names to match the vision or impact of next-generation products"

Try SCOTLAND , although come back in 10-20 years and i will tell you if the product had any longevity or it has been absorbed by the KINGDOM range

[Pangolin]

Actually I love the story of how Scotch Tape got its name. Check it out!

[Bradfo69]

Since it's a new and revolutionary product, perhaps FF4 for, "FlashForward"? A new, revolutionary product probably shouldn't be called "Flash back" anyway. Doesn't that cause one to harken back to earlier days of laser wizardry?

[hitekvoop]

" it's not easy to come up with revolutionary names to match the vision or impact of next-generation products"

Try SCOTLAND , although come back in 10-20 years and i will tell you if the product had any longevity or it has been absorbed by the KINGDOM range

Take it from a yank, once you break away, you won't go back.

- - - Updated - - -

Any Monkey Dust fans in the house? They had an ad guy who used to go to lengths to come up with just the right name.

[Excommunication]

I just got an e-mail with a picture of DMX, Ethernet and ILDA interfaces, with a display and a name: "FB4-SE"

--------------------------------------------------------------

Witness the future of laser control,
at PLS Frankfurt 2015

We are gearing up for the 2015 Prolight+Sound show in Frankfurt, Germany.
This year's exhibition is sure to be one of the best ever, as we will be unveiling
a new hardware platform, that is sure to take the industry by storm.
Great things take time... This is what you have all been waiting for!

Join us for the official announcement and public unveiling.
April 15th, 2015 at 1pm - HALL 11, BOOTH E12

[norty303]

Lets hope we don't need a separate unit per FB3, that'll get expensive I would imagine. Only one set of ILDA I/O per RJ45 as far as I can see, but maybe there are other options.

Let the speculation begin....

[buffo]

Bill showed us the FB4-SE at FLEM this past weekend.

It's a laser controller that is designed to be installed inside a laser projector (much like the OEM version of the FB3 was). The FB4 has a display screen that allows you to access several features from the back of your projector. You connect it to your control computer via an Ethernet cable, rather than the USB cable that the FB3 uses.

Or, if you want, you can connect it via DMX and trigger shows that are stored on the micro-SD card that plugs into the FB4-SE. (It will also operate in stand-alone mode where it starts playing shows on the SD card upon power up, or after hitting play using the O-LED screen and control knob.)

The FB4-SE has basic size, offset, X/Y invert, image rotate, and color balancing controls built right into the unit, so it can operate in stand-alone mode. Or you can connect it to a computer and use Quickshow or Beyond to control it just like you would with an FB3. The primary difference is the lack of the USB connection. By doing everything over Ethernet, you no longer need to have the control computer sitting right next to the controller. (You can even use off-the-shelf hardware like switches and bridges to extend the Ethernet connection.)

There will be another version of this controller that will come in it's own enclosure (much like the Quickshow verison of the FB3 does now). It should be released later this year, but the name of it is still being debated. Some people want to call it the FB4-XE (for external enclosure), while others think that "FB5" is more appropriate. No matter which name is ultimately chosen, it will be the same product inside.

I don't see anything to suggest that the FB4 is designed to replace the FB3. The FB3 still has it's place (in situations where the control computer will be close to the controller and thus a USB connection is not a problem), and it is very good at what it does.

But for applications where it would be beneficial to have the controller located very far from the control computer (and thus an Ethernet connection would be preferred), the FB4 is the obvious solution. Also, for stand-alone or DMX-triggered projectors, the FB4 offers a lot more flexibility than other solutions.

Also, Bill has said several times that the FB3 will remain in production and that the QM2000's will be available for the foreseeable future as well.

Adam