USB Audio DAC mod + LaserBoy Correction Amp

[seanharrison]

I think the soundcard has overheated everything apart from the XY channels 1&2 has all of a sudden stop working. I found a old analogue multimeter, and when i messure the outputs from the op-amp with circle.wav, channels 1&2 XY messure 5 volts. But the other 4 channels have little or no reading. I have tried reconfiguring the op-amp, but this does not solve anything. I'm going to buy a new DMM today. And i might be able solve this when i find out whats going on.

I might get and try the new CM6206 soundcard if i have no look.





Hey Joachim, I wasnt being serious when i said about the FB3 lol, It was just sarcasim.

Tell me more about the Easylase, This might be a good solution for me..

I know its compatible with all the software that i want to use.

How much is the Easylase?





Zoof, Im not gonna bail out on your guys, It is just a bit of bad look. I will get this soundcard DAC sorted or atleast get another one built. and if all else fails i will opt for the Easylase. But i dont have alot of money at the moment so OPEN SOURCE all the way

And sorry, I DO LOVE your games Zoof!

Right, Scrap all that, I got a new digital multimeter and fix my laptop,

And...

Finally i have found out what my problems are. I now have my laptop working and everything works fine with it. Now i plug the setup into my desktop, and nothing. So i have checked the outputs from the Soundcard and the OP-Amp with my new DMM. All is fine voltage wise. 0volts idle and 5.00volts with circle.wav.

So what to do now, Well i have not got a O'Scope to see what is going on with the waveform. So i went for the next best thing, Some old headphones and listened to each output. I have discovered when the soundcard is plugged into my desktop it has different output levels and noise from the Left & Right (X&Y) channels is partially coming through other 4 Laser Channels (R,B,G & I). Checked this back on the laptop. and it does not exist. All channels work correctly and sound clear. I have made sure that the Drivers are both configured the same way (6 channel out etc.).

So i think its either a USB fault or driver issue,

Anyone got any thoughts on this ?

Also has anyone had problems between different PC's also Anyone tried Windows Vista Drivers?

[carmangary]

I got it working under Vista. Under Vista I had to set it to 8 channels to get it work and I set all of the speaker positions (dB levels) to default. If I messed with them or didn't set to 8 channels I had the same problems you are experiencing.

[drlava]

Hi Joachim, you bring up some good points...

I know this. But maybe there was a reason, why the games just supported EasyLase. Have you ever thought about this?

I did think about this from the beginning, that there could have been an exclusive agreement between you two, and if the author decided to do that, it's his (unfortunate in my opinion) decision. That agreement, if made, still has its value: no competing products are compatible with laseroids. However when asked about supporting other DACs, the response was 'no' due to lack of time, not exclusivity with easylase.

I also know this. And we will not say anything against it, as long as this project will not become commerical. But as soon as a commerical product uses our calls as "backdoor" to communicate with software, we will react in this or that kind.

Good by me. The driver is released for non commercial use only as stated on the download page and if a company did use this driver in a commercial product I would have a problem with it too.

We are not just sitting at home and wait until someone buys our product. We cooperate with many other companies and there are many agreements with other companies, for example software companies. There are political and financial reasons, why a software X uses the interface Y instead of the interface Z. Software X does not support hardware Y, just because it looks nice. I hope you understand

This politicization of compatibility I do not think benefits laser freaks large or small. If a show software wants to be popular, it should be the best and failing that it should be compatible with as many devices, standards, and file types as possible. Sometimes the most compatible software is also considered the 'best' by many. If a hardware wants to be popular, it too should be compatible with as much software as possible, but not in an exclusive agreement because this agreement would be detrimental to the show software. This is my opinion as somewhat of an outsider to the laser politik.

But as soon as you opened the door for using other hardware, you also opened the door for companies (for example in Asia) to use this.
And believe me: A commerical product ALWAYS is step 2 of a hobby project. I can tell you many examples, where exactly this happened.

If they do use this, their names will be made known by us as a company to avoid, also those who resell it.

Unfortunately, not everything is used for what it was meant to use for..
I don't want any reaction of you guys here and now.

I understand this to mean you don't want us to change this right now, thank you for that.

I just wanted to explain, that not all of your projects, make everybody happy (specially me). And that some projects, originally started to make some freaks happy, can influence business of some commercial showlaser companies. Not because 10 hobby-laserists are not buying a commercial product, but because companies take the project-results to save time and cost and fight us. So the red alarm-lamp is on now.
Joachim

I think the goal of many of these personal laserist projects is to share with people of like mind the creations of ones enjoyment, and they often do not wish their work to be used by commercial interests without permission. They lack the resources to fight it, however, but when other companies like yours offer to fight it with and for them, that actually helps! If businesses are influenced in the right way by projects - either being forced to innovate more or lower prices, you will probably find the project creator unapologetic! However no one wants industry to be influenced in the wrong way - closing doors to information and reducing compatibility and openness. If this is what you are talking about we should discuss how to prevent it. By the way, this is not the first example of software compatibility through function call simulation. Another I know of is that HE-Laserscan is compatible with the Mamba MLD driver interface you mention above.

Since we graciously have the ear of an 'industry insider', maybe you can comment:
Due to companies disliking the use of their APIs with other hardware (this also is not a great suprise), Carmangary and I, and others are interested in drafting a unified driver API model for 'open' and home-brew DACs. This can be used in open-hardware software to allow compatibility with a range of creations without the need to recompile the show software or bother the software authors to request yet another driver interface be implemented for each new hardware. Likely this driver model could be used by commercial products if they desired. It would include a wide range of capabilities such as multi-dac support, DMX, TTL, and other options which may be supported by the hardware, but would include a way to tell the software (if it cares) just what functionality was available. If such an API were defined and implemented, do you think the show software industry would be interested? Is the mamba MLD function set already opened for this use a-la HE?

[seanharrison]

I got it working under Vista. Under Vista I had to set it to 8 channels to get it work and I set all of the speaker positions (dB levels) to default. If I messed with them or didn't set to 8 channels I had the same problems you are experiencing.

Hey Gary,

I have tried them all in default, and in different positions. also both on 6 and 8 channels but still no look.

Do you think you could email me a copy of the Drivers that you used in a zip/rar file ? They might be a slightly different version ?

Also, Quick question, I can seem to get Spaghetti to load in Vista x64, The MonchaDLL.dll is a 32-Bit App and loads as default, How can i change the config file so that the Soundcard is selected as default DAC ?

I really want to get shaghetti working

[carmangary]

Hey Gary,

I have tried them all in default, and in different positions. also both on 6 and 8 channels but still no look.

Do you think you could email me a copy of the Drivers that you used in a zip/rar file ? They might be a slightly different version ?

Also, Quick question, I can seem to get Spaghetti to load in Vista x64, The MonchaDLL.dll is a 32-Bit App and loads as default, How can i change the config file so that the Soundcard is selected as default DAC ?

I really want to get shaghetti working

Send me an email and I'll send you the drivers and give you some other info. You can use the "Contact Us" page on my website. It goes to me... Us = Me.

[James Lehman]

This is just a copy of the mini CD that comes with the card.

http://hacylon.case.edu/laser/LaserB..._L_drivers.zip

Might be helpful.

James.

[seanharrison]

Right, I eventully got Vista x64 working with my Scanner. But i still cant get a clear image, This is what i have so far. Im am using ScanPro20's. And need serious advice on Tuning etc.

First Photos are from Spaghetti:


ILDA @ 20K





ILDA @ 30K




QUAD @ 20K



ILDA2 @ 20K




And here are some LaserBoy Waves


ILDA



WAVE



CIRCLE



LaserBoy Logo


The Laserboy waves, have an XY Offset of 9, This gives me the cleanest image, But it still wont give me anything better than these photos

I've tried everything, I spent hours today going though Adam's Scanner Tuning guide on the Laser Show Parts website, This has only got me back to the same point :S

[thesk8nmidget]

first off what is the scan angle?

in spaghetti you can set it at an exact angle but in the box on the top left of the more menu there is a box you can adjust size. adjust that down to a smaller size

[drlava]

From the first photo it looks like you'll be able to get at least 20k ilda tuned in well. make sure optimization is off in spaghetti as you tune.

[James Lehman]

In LaserBoy, there are settings in the [Tab] menu that get used when the vector art gets optimized and written to wave.

If you decrease the value of setting '3' longest optimized vector in points, you will be asking your scanners to move a shorter distance between clock samples.

You can also increase the dwell time, setting '4' maximum dwell in microseconds. The idea here is that the sharpest angle you can expect your scanners to draw is 180 degrees, in other words, while moving in one direction, they stop and go completely backwards. Angles less than 180 will get less dwell time. Dwell time comes down to a number of points (samples) sitting on the same spot in a corner of your drawing.

Another thing you can try is to change the sample rate of the wave. Although I do not recommend this approach. Your sound card DAC really only does 48KHz, no matter what you stream to it. The driver will resample everything to clock out at 48KHz. However, if you chose sample rates that are integer divisions of 48000, you should get decent results. That is to say, if you choose a sample rate of 16000, then each point will be clocked out three times in a row at 48KHz. That should be fine.

If you decrease the longest optimized vector in points and / or increase the maximum dwell in microseconds, you will be adding more points to each optimized frame, so each frame will take longer to render on your scanners and it will flicker more.

Obviously, after you make these settings changes you will have to regenerate you waves.

James.