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Thread: Spacelas

  1. #1
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    Default Spacelas

    http://www.spacelas.com
    http://shop.spacelas.com

    Chinese projectors. There, I've said it, have your little tantrums and come back in 5 minutes

    Right, now you can say "I told you so". Happy now? Well let's assume so and get on with the review. I was actually the proud owner of a pair of 1W Spacelas RGBs, and decided, when moving a step up the ladder to 2W, to give them my business again. The build quality of my 1Ws was good, the cases were small and neat inside and outside, and the projectors were set up perfectly and near-identically, with a lovely cold bluey-white.

    So: the 2W projectors. For the record, they are Xmaxs. I paid a quite reasonable 1350 GBP each, including shipping and flight cases. I don't like the way these companies use Paypal in a dodgy way for exchanging funds. They don't show the "PayPal guarantee" so there's not much comeback if it goes pear-shaped. Spacelas do have an online store (shop.spacelas.com) so actually look a bit more credible than most Chinese merchants, but I am now of the opinion that this is a facade.

    I hoped the new lasers would live up to the quality of their smaller cousins. They did not. They are still smaller and lighter than I might have expected, and though not quite as neat looking as the 1Ws, they're neat enough. But the biggest problem by far was that the green on one of the projectors was much weaker than the other. The (Quickshow) target beams were about 40% dimmer, something I only noticed during my first show when the 2 were side-by-side. The white balance was poor, too, somewhat too bluey in general but the difference in green showed markedly too.

    So after the show I emailed Spacelas. I did not get a reply for a whole week. That's pretty poor, really. And of course, they weren't even remotely interested in helping (certainly not now they have my money). They didn't even offer a refund or replacement or a fix. But Sam, the dude who sold me the gear, did inform me that the projectors had a different green in them - one 800mW, the other 600mW, and that this was probably what I was seeing.

    Hmmm. Well I'm not convinced. My 300mW greens looked a bit brighter that the (alleged) 600mW one, but of course there could be an issue with optical alignment or driver setup too, so I am now looking into this. I have informed Spacelas that I will invoice them for any money I have to fork out to get the projectors up to spec, but I think I would be wildly optimistic if I thought they'd honour that. So yes, these may well be my last Chinese projectors, because there is no substitute for customer service when you're forking out thousands of GBP. There's also no substitute for a meticulous assembly procedure - simply using whatever is lying around, rather than standard parts, is not a good sign. Even if the 800 and the 600 weren't vastly different (they're meant to be supplying ~500mW to the total output), their analogue characteristics over the input range would be different. And there is no substitute for a good QA department who will say "sorry guys, this isn't up to scratch" after a thorough test. Sorry Spacelas, you "forgot" that the customer is king.
    Last edited by smokeAndMirrors; 11-26-2012 at 12:29.

  2. #2
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    Default

    Did you use a credit card to fund the Paypal purchase?
    If so, you could chargeback.

    Sorry to hear about your loss. I had to go through a bit of a process to ensure I got evenly matched greens, involving buying more than I required and power testing them all.
    Frikkin Lasers
    http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk

    You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?

    I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.

  3. #3
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    Default

    P.S. perhaps Sam Song might like to comment on the thread, given how much business must come through the forum. I've had emails myself recently so I'd be interested knowing how this might be resolved.
    Frikkin Lasers
    http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk

    You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?

    I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.

  4. #4
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    Default

    Ok progress being made, slowly. Sam got in touch and asked me to take some video footage to show the difference in projectors. So I did some tests, and found there are actually 2 problems:

    1. Because one projector has a weaker green, the white balance is different. It's actually poor on the weaker projector, even with tweaking. Not unacceptable, but a bit disappointing given that it's good on the other one. Spacelas need to pay attention to this sort of detail as colour correctness is important to us people doing public shows. Sam offered to send me a replacement green module should the existing one prove faulty; that would be a reasonable solution provided I can fit it; though I would hardly be buying projectors if I had the skills to make them myself. So not entirely satisfactory, but at least a reasonable suggestion.

    2. Compounding this problem was a bug in Pangolin Beyond. For some reason, a cue that chases green target beams is dimmer on one projector than the other, but if I swap the FB3s, the dim projector also switches, and (clincher) the same cue in Quickshow has even greens. Mr Benner is on the case.

    I made the mistake of conflating the two problems as one problem. Will repeat to myself "correlation is not causation" a few hundred times.

  5. #5
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    On the Beyond bug, was this due to different FB3 models, or the way it addresses multiple dacs of the same type?
    Frikkin Lasers
    http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk

    You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?

    I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by norty303 View Post
    On the Beyond bug, was this due to different FB3 models, or the way it addresses multiple dacs of the same type?
    Still waiting to see what Alexey can find!

  7. #7
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    Ok, what DACs were you using? All QS, or a mixture?
    Frikkin Lasers
    http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk

    You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?

    I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by norty303 View Post
    Ok, what DACs were you using? All QS, or a mixture?
    2 x Pango FB3-QS.

  9. #9
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    Default

    Any updates on this?

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by AvLee View Post
    Any updates on this?
    Not yet! Pangolin have been quiet since I submitted the issue. Note that it may only be relevant in the most recent of builds (I am on v1.6 build 503 and there was an overhaul of the colour output system recently).

    As for Spacelas, they have conceded that if you buy multiple units of a projector, their QA needs to confirm that the colour balance is within good tolerance. Slapping miscellaneous parts into them is simply not acceptable. Do I want to go through the hassle of returning a laser to China for the sake of a small aesthetic defect? In this case no, it's on the border of acceptability. Will I buy from China again? Unlikely. Not without proper buyer protection and a return policy that doesn't punish me for their mistakes.

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