Laser Projector (Red, Green, Purple) "Laser 3D Party Light" from Spencer's

[tribble]

Well, I went and got myself one after clearing it with the "local Santa!" Very excited to have something that will do basic graphics in the house! It's the single-board version, as you posted previously.

My R/G/B alignment is a bit off; I opened it up and saw all that glue and got cold feet about touching it for fear of making it worse and never getting it back! At 20' none of the spots is touching any of the others. Was it very difficult to align?

My microphone was nearly deaf so I turned up the mic gain and the unit is much more responsive in "music" mode. The little pot near the mic plugin was the right one to turn for that.

Now I am going to start perusing the threads looking for frame-building software! I read somewhere that Andrew's ILD SOS can import multi-layer SVG, but the manual doesn't mention it.

I ordered a 1GB and a 4GB Elite Pro card from someone on Amazon; I will let everyone know if the 4GB works or not.

[DogP]

Well, I went and got myself one after clearing it with the "local Santa!" Very excited to have something that will do basic graphics in the house! It's the single-board version, as you posted previously.

Cool!

My R/G/B alignment is a bit off; I opened it up and saw all that glue and got cold feet about touching it for fear of making it worse and never getting it back! At 20' none of the spots is touching any of the others. Was it very difficult to align?

Difficult is a relative term. It took some time and patience (and a helper near the wall to get it perfect was helpful), but I was able to get it. Which one is the worst? I found the green to be the easiest to align.

My microphone was nearly deaf so I turned up the mic gain and the unit is much more responsive in "music" mode. The little pot near the mic plugin was the right one to turn for that.

Yeah, the mic always seems deaf... I didn't realize that pot was for that... cool! I don't think I'll ever use that mode, but my plan was to remove the mic and add a line-in if I ever wanted anything music activated.

Now I am going to start perusing the threads looking for frame-building software! I read somewhere that Andrew's ILD SOS can import multi-layer SVG, but the manual doesn't mention it.

Regarding SVG, I've seen these threads talking about using OLA and ILD SOS: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...version-proggy and http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...me-experimemts . This is also a good overview thread: http://laserpointerforums.com/f47/la...wip-66859.html . I believe people have used Inkscape for making DXF files, and importing them in LaserBoy. I've never personally worked with Inkscape for any of this though. I've used bmp2ild to generate a decent looking image (online coloring books are a great place to get art to convert, since they're all lines already)... and then used LaserBoy to minimize and optimize. There's definitely a learning curve with LaserBoy, but if you stick with it, it's well worth it.

I ordered a 1GB and a 4GB Elite Pro card from someone on Amazon; I will let everyone know if the 4GB works or not.

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear whether the 4GB works... is it SDHC, or the non-standard 4GB regular SD? I'd be surprised if these support SDHC.

On another note... I'm on my way to building a sound card DAC.






I wanted as small of a 5.1 (or 7.1) channel DAC as possible... and came across some 5.1 ch headphones for $25. They're by Acoustic Research, model ARW200, and have the C-Media CM6206-LX chipset inside a small USB plug. The smallest regular 5.1 ch USB sound card I could find was about 3.5"x1.8"... this has everything I want at only about 1.125"x0.75" (since there's no large headphone sockets and stuff). I haven't worked out all the details yet, but I don't see any reason that this won't work... and there will be no problem squeezing it into the existing case.

I ordered it from this seller on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271118924749 ... shipped quick and cheap. Don't bother ordering from Tiger Direct (on ebay)... that's where I first tried ordering it from, and after two weeks, they never shipped it, and ignored my emails asking when it would ship. When I filed a dispute, they refunded my money with no explanation... just a waste of time.

DogP

[tribble]

For the life of me I cannot get LaserBoy or bmp2ild to generate an ILDA type 0 frame... I will keep reading the links you posted, thanks for the tips! Sorry for the short note... little one is here saying it is time for tooth brushing. :-\

[DogP]

Up at post 105, I posted instructions from James on how to move it in the Z axis, which makes it type 0 (3D). So in my case, I take a BMP file, run it through bmp2ild, run that ild file through LaserBoy (something like: impose 8 bit x/y resolution on all frames, minimize all frames, move in Z, and then optimize all frames). It takes some trial and error to get the optimization settings the way you want, but once you get comfortable with the program, it definitely is very powerful.

DogP

[tribble]

Oh geez, I must be blind. Thanks for pointing that out; after some fiddling, I did get it to work! Initially, I was hitting '6' while already in the 'v' menu, which for some reason does not work the same as starting in the main menu, hitting '6', and then hitting 'v'. I have the "magic incantation to convert to 3D" posted on a stickynote on my monitor now: 6vOqT^O! I have been having a grand time learning how the dwell points affect the image at different scan speeds and trying to figure out what and how to tell LaserBoy so that it can automatically optimize for these slow scanners instead of me trying to delete and add points in the right places.

The USB soundcard DAC project looks pretty cool! Are you going to attempt to do analog modulation of the three lasers as well as drive the scanners? That would be pretty sweet. Does LaserBoy do 5 channel out?

You know, you could strap a raspberry pi to the top and have a completely portable, self-contained laser projection system. I bet you could do wireless control from an Android or iPad through the raspberry pi too!

Regarding my alignment... see photo below. I guess the green is most "out of place" if we take the midpoint of the other two as "where everything should point." There's some diffractive junk around the green, but I'm not sure which optic is the source. Maybe the green collimator. I haven't hit it with canned air yet, but I might. Failing that I have some Eclipse solution and some PEC-pads. The blue also looks like it is suffering from some destructive interference somewhere.



I thought about heating the bottom plate with a heat gun to soften the glue... any idea if the glue would be susceptible to that? When you said you shimmed the laser, do you mean you put things under one side or the other to tilt it slightly and achieve a small offset at laser height?

For $178 after tax, this really is a fabulous 'gateway' projector. It won't be long before I'm yearning for the 'hard' stuff and saving up for a set of DT40s... ;-) And, again I really appreciate the help you've provided!

[james]

LaserBoy makes standard ILDA files with X, Y, (Z), red, green and blue.

LaserBoy also does 6 channel waves. You can choose what kind of signal you want in the last channel.

I would suggest using Spider Player http://spider-player.com to play the waves. If you want to see them and even edit them, you can open them in Audacity. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

The track layout is:

1 = X
2 = Y
3 = red
4 = green
5 = blue
6 = monochrome (or Z)

If you have a single color laser there are a few different ways to make a monochrome signal that is a blend of red, green and blue.

Also, to make all the frames 3D you might try menu h option 2, AFTER you optimize all the frames in 2D! This stretches the points in order in the Z axis, so when you rotate the frame you can see the order the points are drawn and you can see dwell. I don't know if the built in DAC does any kind of depth distortion. I doubt it. If it looks weird, go back to doing it like you were.

James.

[tribble]

James, thanks for the tips! Your LaserBoy software is definitely capable, albeit with a steep learning curve. Thanks for supporting the community with it!

Are there other threads with usage advice, instructions, tips, and tricks that I should read?

I'm curious about the ILDA file format; someday when I have more free time I might like to turn equations into art. :-)

[james]

There is a whole forum dedicated to all aspects of LaserBoy, the application and the related DAC plus there are a few other software developers who host their offerings there.

Do you program in C++? If so you can download Dev-C++ and get libSDL and Boost C++ on your own workstation. Then you can do all kinds of neat stuff with the LaserBoy source code. For one thing you can add your own frame and frame set effects. Those are neatly separated into their own files. Take a look at what's there, copy and modify to your hearts content. Just remember to register the name and the pointer to any function you create at the bottom of the file(s).

Also, there is a special constructor for a frame set that takes a pointer to a function. You define the function for X, Y, Z, r, g, b and frame index, then you pass that function name to the constructor and it will populate a whole frame set with math! That's how I made the 3D abstracts that come with LaserBoy.

And, if you are not so adventurous with digging into someone else's C++ you can write your own program that simply prints tables of plain ASCII text numbers! You can use any programming language, a math CAD app like Maple or MatLab or a programmable spread sheet!

You can even open Notepad and start typing!

LaserBoy can read and write formatted plain text in several different ways.

http://laserboy.org/forum/index.php?topic=218.0

LaserBoy also reads and writes generic CAD DXF files.

Any color vector art that makes its way into LaserBoy space can be saved in any of the output file types that LaserBoy supports.

James.

[tribble]

There is another interesting aspect of this projector that I wanted to throw out there.

I was expecting that the image quality would vary as the mechanical scanning angle was increased. However, in my observations with the ILDA test pattern (and all of the images I've projected, in fact), the behavior of the scanners seems to remain fixed regardless of image scaling with the "focus" knob on the back of the machine. For example, if the blue circle is distorted in a particular way with respect to the square (inside, outside, non-circular, etc.) when the image is as large as it can be made, the proportions don't change as the image is made smaller. I was expecting "better" scanning as the image was made physically smaller, but this apparently doesn't happen.

The image DOES change as you adjust the "scanning speed" parameter of the configuration file on the SD card. DogP has posted many excellent comparison shots of that behavior.

Given all of the galvo specs out there are tied to scan angles (faster at smaller angles) I was hoping for a better looking image with smaller deflections, but apparently no dice.

Thoughts?

[DogP]

Oh geez, I must be blind. Thanks for pointing that out; after some fiddling, I did get it to work! Initially, I was hitting '6' while already in the 'v' menu, which for some reason does not work the same as starting in the main menu, hitting '6', and then hitting 'v'. I have the "magic incantation to convert to 3D" posted on a stickynote on my monitor now: 6vOqT^O! I have been having a grand time learning how the dwell points affect the image at different scan speeds and trying to figure out what and how to tell LaserBoy so that it can automatically optimize for these slow scanners instead of me trying to delete and add points in the right places.

Nice! Yeah, getting the optimization set up perfectly takes some effort, but I always start by minimizing, so I don't have extra dwell points from previous failed attempts to optimize.

The USB soundcard DAC project looks pretty cool! Are you going to attempt to do analog modulation of the three lasers as well as drive the scanners? That would be pretty sweet. Does LaserBoy do 5 channel out?

You know, you could strap a raspberry pi to the top and have a completely portable, self-contained laser projection system. I bet you could do wireless control from an Android or iPad through the raspberry pi too!

I haven't figured out exactly how to do the analog modulation (or whether it's easily doable on this hardware)... I'm gonna try to research that before building this, because it definitely would be sweet. And yeah, once I get the soundcard DAC running on my laptop, I'm planning to try it with my MK802 (like a Raspberry Pi, but smaller, faster, and has built-in WiFi).

Regarding my alignment... see photo below. I guess the green is most "out of place" if we take the midpoint of the other two as "where everything should point." There's some diffractive junk around the green, but I'm not sure which optic is the source. Maybe the green collimator. I haven't hit it with canned air yet, but I might. Failing that I have some Eclipse solution and some PEC-pads. The blue also looks like it is suffering from some destructive interference somewhere.

I thought about heating the bottom plate with a heat gun to soften the glue... any idea if the glue would be susceptible to that? When you said you shimmed the laser, do you mean you put things under one side or the other to tilt it slightly and achieve a small offset at laser height?

That's good that the red is the most centered... that's the hardest to get to. Heating the glue might help, but what I did for the green one was remove the screw(s?) underneath, then take a crescent wrench and twist the large heatsink assembly until the glue broke free. It's rigid and strong, but doesn't flex, so it'll break free with a decent amount of force. Of course you gotta be careful though... the galvos are delicate, as is a lot of the other hardware, and the lasers are very static sensitive. You could try flexing the baseplate as well, so see if you can get it aligned any better by simply bending the metal plate. Then yeah, I turned the assembly left/right, and stuck a small piece of paper under the edge to shim it up/down (and tightened the screw to set it).

The blue is a little bit harder. I don't think you can really adjust the whole heatsink, so if it just needs a minor adjustment, loosen the set screw and try moving the brass tube inside the aluminum heatsink. It has some adhesive, so it doesn't move very much. If that doesn't do it, you need to press the brass tube out of the heatsink... I used one of those rubber covered quick-grip vice things. Then I removed the adhesive, pushed it back in the aluminum heatsink, and slid the brass tube forward/backward, and rotated to get it adjusted just right.

For $178 after tax, this really is a fabulous 'gateway' projector. It won't be long before I'm yearning for the 'hard' stuff and saving up for a set of DT40s... ;-) And, again I really appreciate the help you've provided!

I totally agree... I imagine after making my sound card DAC that I'll probably have to take it a couple steps further, and get some real hardware, though for my current use, I really don't want any more powerful of a laser (nicer galvos/amp would be welcome though ).

Do you program in C++? If so you can download Dev-C++ and get libSDL and Boost C++ on your own workstation.

A couple notes on that from my experience getting this set up... I'd recommend wxDev-C++ (Dev-C++ is really old, hasn't been updated in a long time, and IIRC bundles too old of a gcc to compile one of the libraries). Also, when getting the Boost library, I believe it needs to be 1.45 or older. IIRC tried 1.52 at first, and LaserBoy failed to compile, due to a change (in the file system stuff I think) they made in 1.46.

And, if you are not so adventurous with digging into someone else's C++ you can write your own program that simply prints tables of plain ASCII text numbers! You can use any programming language, a math CAD app like Maple or MatLab or a programmable spread sheet!

This works very well... that's how I made most of my art, and it turned out really well.

I was expecting that the image quality would vary as the mechanical scanning angle was increased. However, in my observations with the ILDA test pattern (and all of the images I've projected, in fact), the behavior of the scanners seems to remain fixed regardless of image scaling with the "focus" knob on the back of the machine.

I noticed the same thing on the new hardware as well. The old hardware looked decent at small scan angles, but at large angles it got noticeably distorted. I'm running my new hardware all the time at almost the maximum scan angle (~25 degrees), and it looks nearly as good as at small angles. I'm guessing this has to do with the DAC, or a low-pass filter on the X/Y signal. The galvo/amp is (as far as I can tell) identical between the old and new models, and I believe the "focus" control changes the gain directly on the amp circuit, so the only thing left to blame is something related to the X/Y signal (since it looks worse when you increase the DAC speed even when you lower the scan angle). I'm hoping the sound card DAC will let me push the analog hardware to its limit, though it may take some hardware tweaks.

The galvos look like ebay 20K galvos, but the amp looks like the 12K amp. So, it wouldn't surprise me if the amp starts rolling off around 12K (either because of a poor performing circuit, or a LPF specifically installed on the input). I'll probably end up probing various parts of the circuit on a scope in X/Y mode to see where the performance drops off. It may even be possible to increase the performance with the stock DAC.

DogP