New(ish) LVP ILDA breakout board

[kl79]

Don't forget to list all the feature ! ....and give us an expected price ;-)

[dave]

Feature list is in the first post.. Ill add some more detail when i have a moment..

Expected price is $250AUD a board.

[loopee]

Hey Dave

Care to share on the "clever way of daisy chaining interlocks " or is that for purchasers only?

"color over ride buttons for alignment" I'm assuming means full power momentary non adjustable control of three lasers?

Cheers mate
Troy

[Stoney3K]

Expected price is $250AUD a board.

Isn't that about the same price as an (unboxed) EtherDream or a RIYA Multibus?

With that kind of money, purchasing a break-out when you can get a full-featured Ethernet DAC for the same price starts to look a little pointless.

[dave]

I think you have overlooked a few things, especially the lack of professional software for either dac!

With either of your mentioned dacs, you still need to worry about driving a shutter, possibly driving diffration gratings, and safety/ interlock circuitry.

This board comes into it's own with a big rig of lasers. Allowing fine tuning of white balance on the fly, mid show via dmx, or head sequencing, or via gratings..

[dave]

Hey Dave

Care to share on the "clever way of daisy chaining interlocks " or is that for purchasers only?

"color over ride buttons for alignment" I'm assuming means full power momentary non adjustable control of three lasers?

Cheers man
Troy

I use the ilda interlock pins for the interlock. Daisy chaining projectors means the interlock is daisy chained. Open the ilda interlock, and lasers will be killed.

Thee are 3 switches to override each colour. And a trim pit to set brightness. These are mounted to the board, so only acessable when the laser is ipen

[depo]

Are we there yet?

[dave]

Haha, pretty much.. I have quickly assembled and tested a few of the boards. Just need to finish the firmware and build up the rest of the boards

[kitatit]

Are we there yet?

Can we have an ice cream?

Haha, pretty much.. I have quickly assembled and tested a few of the boards. Just need to finish the firmware and build up the rest of the boards

Oh boy oh boy gimy gimy....

look you kids! I'll stop the car! Don't make me stop the car...


Can't wait Dave!

[dave]

Bit more progress Should have the rest of the code knocked over soon

[Stoney3K]

With either of your mentioned dacs, you still need to worry about driving a shutter, possibly driving diffration gratings, and safety/ interlock circuitry.

This board comes into it's own with a big rig of lasers. Allowing fine tuning of white balance on the fly, mid show via dmx, or head sequencing, or via gratings...

All of which is also supported by the Etherdream, along with in-band interlock over Ethernet.

The lack of (professional?) software is because the market for these other DACs is still a lot smaller than for something like an FB3/QM2000. So no professional developer will invest serious time or interest into it if they're not going to get enough customers to support it.

If you really want to develop something interesting, draft up a board that takes ILDA as an input from an existing DAC (like FB3) and transmits it over Ethernet so other DACs like the Ether Dream can display it. That way, early adopters can start using the Etherdream while still being able to use their old software, on a lot more compact infrastructure.

[SrS]

The lack of “professional” software supporting Etherdream (or other cheap DAC's) isn’t because there are only a few out there. It isn’t supported because they want to sell their own DAC and have no interest at all to support a competitive product. Do you know any software with support for different DACs that does even come close to LivePro?

[swamidog]

that's the old model and is beginning to break down.

dr.lava has done some really excellent on solving that exact issue: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...058#post206058

and from the ether-dream website: http://ether-dream.com/

"Ether Dream is currently in production. The firmware and driver now work with LSX, ILD SOS, and LFI Player. Development is still ongoing, and new firmware updates are posted regularly."

how do you define "professional"?

The lack of “professional” software supporting Etherdream (or other cheap DAC's) isn’t because there are only a few out there. It isn’t supported because they want to sell their own DAC and have no interest at all to support a competitive product. Do you know any software with support for different DACs that does even come close to LivePro?

[LaNeK779]

that's the old model and is beginning to break down

i'll drink to that ! ! !

[Stoney3K]

The lack of “professional” software supporting Etherdream (or other cheap DAC's) isn’t because there are only a few out there. It isn’t supported because they want to sell their own DAC and have no interest at all to support a competitive product. Do you know any software with support for different DACs that does even come close to LivePro?

That's exactly the mindset that'll back-fire on them in the long run: Not supporting or allowing interoperability and compatibility with third party hardware. By employing a model that would *require* their existing customers to stick to their platform, it also means show equipment doesn't scale anymore. Having interchangeable components (e.g. cross rentals for projectors, DACs or effects) is starting to be more commonplace with bigger shows, and requiring a single platform for almost the entire industry seizes to be economical because of the large amount of equipment around.

The X86 (IBM PC) platform took off and gained advantage of the various computer manufacturers in the 1980s, for a large part because there were a lot of companies that started to make 'PC compatible' hardware which would run the same software. Along with that came standardized interfaces (ISA, PCI, USB, IDE) which allowed a lot of manufacturers to build components which could be swapped out in any PC based system.

Did it hurt IBM or Intel? On short term, maybe, because a lot of companies started to clone their work, but in the long run, they got a huge benefit out of it because the PC became the most predominant platform in the world, even causing (once competitor) Apple to use it for their products.

IBM and Intel got a competitive edge by catering to a different market or servicing the market in a different manner. Instead of trying to maintain an artificial monopoly and "hoping" others wouldn't reverse engineer their work, they turned their policy into making their products the best for the (now broad) PC market. Intel is still one of the biggest CPU manufacturers.

Similarly, companies like Pangolin might need to move towards open standards for communicating with external hardware like DACs, and gain an edge by providing the best service and feature-rich, reliable software.

One of the big reasons Pangolin doesn't want third party DACs to work is because it may open the door towards pirated copies of Pangolin being used in illicit shows. A point can be made for that, but there are more ways to prevent software piracy. Sooner or later, somebody will figure it out anyway and some Chinese "Plagonin" will throw an FB3 clone on the market for $99.

[dave]

Do you know any software with support for different DACs that does even come close to LivePro?

Exactly, or even QS2 for that matter.. For what we do, there is no contest.