Lumia glass special cuboid shape

Hi, Greg

You've just reminded me of LII's great mylar 'burn wheel' effects, of which glassLaser could add to his repertoire.
It's simply melting a sheet of mylar with well controlled power of a laser beam, <2W depending upon the thickness of the mylar.
The effect is reflective, instead of scan through refraction or diffraction. As the mylar melts, the surrounding reflection becomes increasingly distorted, looking like a multicolored bubble, until it bursts like an explosion.
The bubble can be controlled and the explosion delayed by moving the beam, similar to a welding rod pushing a molten puddle. A motorized wheel can also be used, w/o deflecting the reflection away from a camera's FOV.
Couldn't find a previous video demo of the mylar burn, except for this 1 sec Laserium flash of it bubbling up, ready to explode. But here's a good discussion thread referencing it, as well as other lumia ideas.
Cheers!
Roj

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Originally Posted by Greg

This combined talk of sucking and background effects inspired me to finally try a crystal dimple, which when done right looks like ionized plasmas spewing out from or getting sucked in to a stellar nebula.

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That's pretty cool, Greg! Can you clarify the optical path though? I see the "dimple" mounted in front of the bounce mirror, but where did you position the lumia wheel?

Adam

it seems reasonable to post this weird lumia generator i made here. i call it a laser eggbeater and it uses many of the lumia techniques discussed here and some other tricks.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRy3X7Q2xBg

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Originally Posted by TheHermit

Very reasonable indeed, Chris.
Best lumia video I've seen; perfect choice of slow guitar, capturing the intricate interference patterns of the lumia. The slower, the better & w/o stepping. 🤗

Do you happen to have any mylar burn videos to contribute?
BR
Roj

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i do not have any mylar burn videos. never actually seen one in person, but i'll do some experimenting and see what happens.

I haven't unpacked my gear or thought about lasers following February's show but this thread inspired me to.

I put up a video that shows the optical path including the dimple and the wheel. It's not quite the effect I remember from the 1980s. There was a veil like jellyfish shape that had waves of lumia flowing to or from the center with a 3D look.

The video shows Roj's suggestion of scanning an expanding square of dots through the dimple, which was made simply by heating the plastic over an electric element and pushing into a small jar with pliers.

Then, in the video, I tried a bit of narration over a simple test of the potentiometer noise in a CYGN-B symmetry control.

video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0VgIpvA0tw

I found a big roll of good burn mylar some years ago at work. They said it came from home depot, and to take as much as I wanted, so I took a couple of meters. No idea what it's intended purpose is. Here's a poor quality video of this mylar burning using a Lasershowgen timeline. I should remake this using the original long side pod fader.

poor quality video of burn effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnY7YhpaEWc

I am also creating this ionised gas effect with some of my czech glass crystals, that will squeeze and elongate the laser lines in unpredictable ways. It is also filled with water( less than full ) :
https://youtube.com/shorts/woxw8bkjLSU?feature=share

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Originally Posted by Greg

I put up a video that shows the optical path including the dimple and the wheel. It's not quite the effect I remember from the 1980s. There was a veil like jellyfish shape that had waves of lumia flowing to or from the center with a 3D look.

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That's what I expected to see with the slowly expanding/contracting circle. 🤔

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The video shows Roj's suggestion of scanning an expanding square of dots through the dimple, which was made simply by heating the plastic over an electric element and pushing into a small jar with pliers.

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Slight misunderstanding. I meant a circular array of dots, more like your digital circle, but with fewer dots, also slowly expanding and contracting around the center of the dimple.
Thanks for explaining how the dimple was created.

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I found a big roll of good burn mylar some years ago at work. They said it came from home depot, and to take as much as I wanted, so I took a couple of meters. No idea what it's intended purpose is. Here's a poor quality video of this mylar burning using a Lasershowgen timeline. I should remake this using the original long side pod fader.

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Hmm... not like Laserium's burn.
How thick is the mylar and how much power are you hitting it with?
Looks like there is some melting reflections of interference happening. Is that a small flickering scanned image, instead of a static beam? Perhaps that's the difference; causing multiple burns on top of each other, instead of a single clean one
Is the dim scattered lumia looking effect, that's surrounding the central beam's reflection, multiple explosions, created after the beam has burned through the mylar?
Mylar burns are quite challenging to control. Perhaps you missed my now deleted suggestion for Chris to use double sided tape to attach a circular mylar cut out onto the existing lumia wheel, large enough to overhang around the edge to avoid heatsinking. The static beam's point of incidence should be the over hanging area of the mylar. The wheel keeps the mylar moving to avoid prematurely 'blowing up' the burn's bubble. The mylar needs to be as clean and flat as possible for the reflection to remain center screen.
With the wheel turning as slowly as possible, without stepping, very slowly apply more intensity to the static beam, which is reflecting off the mylar's surface onto a projection screen.
As you approach the melting point, the reflection should start getting larger, appearing like a rolling multicolored bubble, before exploding.
Hope these instructions make sense and help you to achieve a great looking burn.
I have vague memories of Laserium using a burn during a transition of Jimi's "The Gods Made Love", with it bubbling up on the initial thunder sounds, then exploding towards the end noises.
Rots-a-ruck!.
Roj

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Originally Posted by glassLaser

I am also creating this ionised gas effect with some of my czech glass crystals, that will squeeze and elongate the laser lines in unpredictable ways. It is also filled with water( less than full ) :

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Lots of interesting random lumia going on all at once. Looks like you're scanning an image, perhaps with audio modulation. With lumia, sometimes less is more.
Perhaps you could gain more predictable control by applying a smaller, simpler, slower moving image and observing what happens while moving it around the crystal.
It's a great exercise to learn how the light reacts with different surfaces, even without the temptation to synchronize with music, until the lumia is under control.
Just a few suggestions for whatever they're worth. Personally, I prefer immersing myself inside clean, flowing, cloud-like intricate interference patterns, while mixing colors, like enjoying a sunset to the sound of a progressive modular synth's drone. 🤗
Keep up the good work! It's very addictive, but I've never heard of anyone over dosing... only over spending on more gear.
😎

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Originally Posted by TheHermit

Lots of interesting random lumia going on all at once. Looks like you're scanning an image, perhaps with audio modulation. With lumia, sometimes less is more.
Perhaps you could gain more predictable control by applying a smaller, simpler, slower moving image and observing what happens while moving it around the crystal.
It's a great exercise to learn how the light reacts with different surfaces, even without the temptation to synchronize with music, until the lumia is under control.
Just a few suggestions for whatever they're worth. Personally, I prefer immersing myself inside clean, flowing, cloud-like intricate interference patterns, while mixing colors, like enjoying a sunset to the sound of a progressive modular synth's drone. 🤗
Keep up the good work! It's very addictive, but I've never heard of anyone over dosing... only over spending on more gear.
😎

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Indeed, it is a laser show, quite rich also. I will try with more basic repetative patterns. Thank you.
This one crystal is very good for lumia effects, I think.
It is also quite interesting how the colors are mixed. It is a DPSS laser projector with full analog modulation, i think a very good color gamut and it is represented very artisticly through the crystal structure.

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Originally Posted by glassLaser

Indeed, it is a laser show, quite rich also. I will try with more basic repetative patterns. Thank you.

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You're very welcome. I enjoy sharing my experiences and suggestions with others. With your OTC crystal, I would start with a simple circle and play with the vertical and horizontal sizes to enable manual control the lumia shapes, and modulate the colors.
If LaserShowGen is capable of creating square or pulse width waveforms, to mix/sum with the previously mentioned circle, then you can double the lumia effects along either axis and/or quadruple a beam by applying it on both axis. This will also overlay similar lumia clouds.
You can also slow down the square wave's frequency to jump lumia to the beat or strobe the effect.

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It is also quite interesting how the colors are mixed. It is a DPSS laser projector with full analog modulation, i think a very good color gamut and it is represented very artisticly through the crystal structure.

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Yes, a very slow sinusoidal RGB color modulation signal works great.
If you synchronize color changes with the square wave frequencies, then you can have different colored overlaid lumia.
Now, you're in control to be more creative.

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This one crystal is very good for lumia effects, I think.

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A motorized base to rotate the crystal would be a great addition to create random flowing motion to your lumia effects.
Doesn't need to be anything elaborate. A small geared 5VDC motor can be powered via a powered USB hub. Doesn't get much less expensive than these on Amazon, plus they're Arduino compatible to make their speeds programmable.
A variable speed control is great to slowly accelerate from a static lumia background to more aggressive movement.
The previously suggested variable speed turntable/lumia wheel motor would provide you with the ability to test and select your preferred assortment of lumia devices.
The key for 'good shows' is the ability to morph as many variations out of a single effect as possible to keep it interesting, with flowing continuity for viewers to easily follow the progression from simplicity to a more complex climax.
Clickamouse has a great How To thread for making torture tubes, which are commonly used inside lumia projectors. These give you custom control on what the lumia effect will look like and save money on purchasing OTC crystals. Here's another lumia thread with all of the details for sourcing bits.
TBH, while focusing on developing the T4 Laser Synth, I haven't had the time to build my lumia projector, yet. But, I've been considering my numerous options for a few years.
A second lumia projector, using an inexpensive analogue RGB diode module would free up the imaging projector(s) to scan dancing imagery on top of the lumia backgrounds, plus it enables one to easily redirect beams to different lumia backgrounds.
Food for thought... a large enough serving to chew on for a while, I reckon.
BR
Roj