Seeking some advice...

[ithalua]

Well this is the part where my lack of knowledge kicks in.. :P

I've only assumed RGY is the go to because it's what I've most commonly seen, honestly a red, blue and combined magenta sounds much more appealing in my opinion.

I would not know a good ratio of mW for 660nm and 445nm though, and after what you said I believe
I'll save and browse parts for a commission to allow for a platform that can be upgraded over time as opposed to
trying to find finding a reliable company that would have almost exactly what I want and can be vouched for (There will be a place for Kvant in the future for me i hope )

So for now I'll save some more for assurances and the quality that can come with a PL build.

[White-Light]

The trouble with all these cheaper lasers is they're nearly all Chinese units or re-branded Chinese units.

It sounds awful to be so down on the Chinese considering they do produce good items in some areas. However, with projectors they seem to target and service the lower end of the market.

I couldn't comment on whether Dune is French built or Chinese rebranded or what parts are used inside, as I simply don't know. I don't think anyone on here has had one of these units.

Your biggest problem with buying an RGY unit is you may not have space in the case to upgrade it to RGB later. Remember its not just the head but the extra Driver (and possibly PSU) that has to fit in there.

Also remember you want ANALOGUE lasers. TTL will need to replaced as you decide to take this hobby further as they limit you to just 7 colours and remove the ability to use colour blending or Beam Attenuation Maps for safety.

At the end of the day, with lasers, you tend to get what you pay for. There are a handful of quality companies out there, then a handful of quality builders. Pretty much outside of those, the cheaper end is serviced by products that have compromises on quality and sometimes those compromises are severe as you've already discovered.

Steer clear of 660nm red, its a waste of time as it takes a lot of power to get the brightness you need.

Colour wise you want to be : 640 / 637nm red (not 635), 445 blue, 532 green.

[taggalucci]

Steer clear of 660nm red, its a waste of time as it takes a lot of power to get the brightness you need.

Colour wise you want to be : 640 / 637nm red (not 635)

Agreed. For the record, I quoted 660nm because of the cost argument. If budget is an issue (which I'm assuming), until the Mitsi 300mW 637nm diodes are tamed at a reasonable cost, with reasonable beam specs, I'm not going to recommend 637nm and 640nm. But you could start with 660nm diodes and, when budget permits, replace these with little effort to Opnexts or Mitsis. I have a great little projector that uses one 660nm diode I bet ithalua would be more than content with as a start...



I'm building 2 satellites that will have 2 x 660nm diodes (each). I will likely replace these with 170mW 637nm Opnexts at some point in the future, and the only thing I'll have to do is swap diodes, adjust driver and realign.

[White-Light]

Sorry Tag hadn't read your post. Thought the OP had come to the conclusion that 660nm was the best red on his own.

I agree if budget is tight, its an option. But if possible, I'd say steer clear of 660 because of the brightness and thus power and thus safety issues.

[ithalua]

Admittedly if I were to try and sort out a build within the next couple of weeks then budget would be an issue.
However I rather enjoy the wait and saving up, especially since things are rather hectic down here at the moment.

The advice on what diodes has helped greatly since really I didn't exactly know what to look for but as for now I'll wait a little while longer.

Thanks for the help and suggestions and at least now I know what I'm aiming to do and where to look!

[White-Light]

The problem with 660 or even 650 is you have to run much higher power levels to achieve the same level of brightness.

I believe Norty did a test on here where he showed 300mw 640 was as bright as 1W of 650nm. So 660nm will be considerably dimmer and require even more power.

Edited - found Norty's video:



Now the safety problem comes about because the higher the power, the more energy the beam carries and thus the more dangerous it is potentially to your eyes (the brightness itself has no bearing on safety, just the power).

So obviously it's a lot harder to put on a safe display with 1W red than with 300mw red. So if the 300mw red is just as bright, its a sensible choice to choose the 300mw red over the 1W or to scale it up if doing larger displays, 1W red over 3.5W red.

This doesn't tell the whole story as red colour and palette extent also come into it. However, most people are prefer to give up a few palette shades for the extra brightness watt for watt of a shorter wavelength red such as 640 or 637.

The other thing to consider is beam spec. 640 / 637 / 660 have good beam specs. 635 & 650 do not which is why those colours also tend to be avoided these days.

So unless you have specific colour requirements, or your budget is stifling you, 637 or 640 nm red is the way to go.

[edison]

Thanks white-light I have a better one Oh by the way rob and mark are not the only ones who builds projectors

[White-Light]

Sorry Edison, so difficult to keep track of everyone who builds commercially these days and those who only do it for fun.

[edison]

I was just teasing you white-light No appologies needed.
I,m acctually in the middle. I,m not doing it commercially yet in a way that i can assemble them in bigger numbers but that will be happening in april when i do the next batch of cases. I want cases now but i need to concentrate on building modules. The projectors that i build are still custom build ones so i drill the baseplate myself. That will change in the next one. Saves allot of work And it will have an option for Moncha or Fiesta to install in the projector. It has still an ILDA in so also other software can be controlling the projector. I would advice to start with a good case and slightly heavier powersupplies so when you build a projector when upgrading you can swap the modules only instead of tearing the whole projector apart