Messy Laser Beams

[geoffmacneil]

Hello everyone! First of all I bought a crappy ebay laser. Was more of an accident than anything because there were many of the same selling for higher prices and I put a bid in not thinking I would actually win it, but I did. So now I have a laser, which deep down I wanted but wasn't really planning on. So anyway, I received it and it works, happy about that part for a cheap laser.

So for the price I paid I am happy with the laser except one thing, the beams seem to be very messy when projected onto a wall. See Youtube video below.

My question is what causes the beam to act this way? I can only seem to think of two reasons which would make sense to me. Either the way the shows are programmed into the laser from factory, or, the mirror motors move to slow and choppy. I am assuming its more so the mirror motors and am wondering how difficult is it to change the motors in these units if at all possible?

The unit is not ILDA, but is DMX. My plan was to only use it for DMX anyway. I have not tested with a DMX controller yet as I am waiting for my Chauvet ShowXpress to come in. No I didn't order it for the laser, I had it ordered before I even bought this laser for a bunch of other lighting I have.

Thank you in advance for any help you guys can offer!

[Solarfire]

From the sound of projector I'm guessing it has stepper motors in it, therefor no ilda interface. That’s about as good as it’s going to get for that type of a system. You may be able to replace the stepper motors and drivers with galvanometer scanners, that would be the only way to get usable graphic output.

[geoffmacneil]

Right, no ILDA. Just DMX. But I not really trying to get any graphic output. Just when there is a circle or square I would like it to be a circle or square and not have the extra messy parts around it. I don't know if I am explaining this properly so I have attached a screen shot of the areas I am talking about (Red Circles). To me the lines should be much cleaner instead of having these little extra parts. There also seems to be hot spots (yellow circles).

I am also thinking it is because it has stepper motors, but with my lack of experience with laser I would like to know for sure. The other things is how possible it to replace the stepper motors. Are there galvanometer scanners that I would just plug in and it would work, or are there are lot more to it then that. I haven't opened this thing up yet to take a look but am planning on doing so. I have done quite a bit of reading on lasers and what not but haven't gotten my hands dirty to fully understand how all this goes together yet so please excuse my ignorance. Also I have spent a lot of time looking for the answers to these questions before posting so I am not being lazy just asking. I know a lot of the very basic information about ILDA and lasers and motors / galvos and such but don't know how everything goes together and what all works together or not.

Attachment 32579

[colouredmirrorball]

Your link does not work, but from what I can make out of your video you definately have stepper motors. There's not much you can do about it, except buying galvos, which would require you to switch to ILDA as well.
Also, are the colours separated? Aren't the patterns supposed to overlap each other? It looks like you have an alignment issue, but I would need to see more footage to be sure.

[allthatwhichis]

He might be able to get away with running the DMX board to a set of scanner amps; the wiring should be that different. Either x+/x-, y+/y- or x+/y+ and a common negative. Might want to get a couple of cheap pairs off eBay in case that DMX board smokes a set.

[colouredmirrorball]

Who says that the DMX board has a scanner signal output, and isn't directly feeding the stepper motors? That's how it was done in mine.
Granted, in this case he could just get a better DMX board such as the Spacelas or Itrust, but if he's doing that much effort he'd better switch to ILDA straight away.

[Solarfire]

The best bet would probably be a set of PT30s with the ITrust DMX board with it.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/30Kpps-HightS...item336172f0ee
The next problem would be getting all that into the projector.
I'm just guessing but the price of these is probably as much, if not more, than what you paid for the projector. Hmm..?