Need advice on budget RGB

[Grix]

Basically me and a few friends are hosting an event soon where I thought a laser show would be a great addition, but I need some help choosing a setup.
Our budget is about 700 $ MAX, preferably less. It would be cooler with a three color laser rather than two color.

I've been looking at this:
http://global.ebay.com/400mW_RGB_ILD...400112384/item
Sound card DAC
Spaghetti software

Is this a decent choice?

EDIT: Oh and the event is in only four weeks, so it's kinda urgent.

[ElektroFreak]

Given your budget, something like that is about your only choice. You could get a green-only system that is more powerful and better quality for the same cost. I would consider that option carefully if you plan on doing a show with it, since brightness and visibility trumps multi-color in importance. If I have to choose between a 400mW full-color and a 400mW green system I'd pick the green for a live show. The audience appreciates raw brightness more than full-color most of the time.

[Grix]

The highest raw power I could find that fits the budget was a 200mW green, do you still think that is better? For $100-50 over the budget I also found a 500mW full-color one, with 90mw green instead of 60mw. Perhaps I can persuade the budget-guy to spend enough to buy that, or would the difference be marginal?

Thanks again for the help, both here and on the thread on LPF

[ElektroFreak]

Well, the thing is that full-color is nowhere near as bright per mW as just a green laser by itself. If you can get a 200mW green system or a 500mW full color w/90mW of green I'd still go with the 200mW green myself for a live show. The brightest laser in the 500mW full-color will be the 90mW green.. and that's not very bright comparatively. Even 500mW of white light is not as visible as 200mW of green.

To do live shows with full-color, I recommend that you take however much green power it takes to do the job and then quadruple it to get roughly the same visibility from full-color. I know that full-color systems are extra awesome, but only if they're highly visible. As I said previously, brute power and visibility are the most important features for a live show. Multicolor comes secondary. The ultimate goal for a laserist is own or build full-color systems that are powerful enough to be highly visible. If your budget won't allow for that kind of power, stick with green. The audience will appreciate it more than a barely visible full-color system.

This advice only pertains to doing a live show. If you're going to use the system for your own personal enjoyment at home, a 400-500mW RGB is more than sufficient.

[Dr Laser]

I'm sorry but the Laser you mentioned of ebay is just a toy. It is incapable to do graphics or any effect besides crup built in. And even if it has ILDA port. Then this 10-15kpps will totally screw up any attempts to do something good. It IS A TOY! Get 300mw LaserWave green and a set of 20kpps galvos. It will be around your target budget. With lasers you can't go cheep and cheerful.

[norty303]

Hire

(and some characters to get to the minimum)

[ElektroFreak]

well you're no fun..

[mccarrot]

RGB you have seen is nice for own use in your bedroom, but is not capable to do any real show with big audiance. a 200mW green can easily fill a room with 500 people. (if audiance scanning is alowed and not too much other lights)

[Grix]

I think you guys are too used to professional, expensive shows!
This is just for fun, there's only going to be like max 70-80 people watching and in a small area. Even if the laser i linked is just a toy, I think it will do just fine for this occasion as long as it is "pretty cool" to watch, which of course it is. And afterwards it would be cool for us to own it, so hiring is not really what we want. Plus lasers are so expensive here in Norway that hiring locally would probably be almost as expensive as buying from abroad.

Also we might get the 500mW version of the laser I linked which has 20k scanners instead, so that's a bonus.

[ElektroFreak]

If the area you're filling is small and will only have 70-80 people, the 500mW system you linked to will do fine. I was thinking you were doing something like 500-1000 heads. Just fill 'er up with haze.