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Thread: China RGB laser modules: worth it?

  1. #1
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    Default China RGB laser modules: worth it?

    So I noticed some people getting cheap China RGB laser "bricks": prebuilt RGB modules with optics and drivers in one housing.
    I also noticed a lot of people complaining about them, especially the drivers seem to blow up as soon as you put the recommended voltage on them.

    Does anyone have experience with those that they want to share?

    I'm looking into this direction for my own projector, since I'm not the best at working with metals and housings and fabricing and stuff (my current blue only projector is taped together in an eternal "temporary setup"). Those laser modules take away a lot of the hard work and allow me to focus on show creation in full RGB for the first time, and the price isn't too bad. So, I'm quite tempted. But if they are all utter crap that blow up when you touch them, it's no good for me.

    Ebay has plenty of them: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trks...at=0&_from=R40

    I'm looking at this item: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...:X:RTQ:US:1123
    1 W analog RGB with PSU included (I asked the seller).

    So: worth it or stay away?

  2. #2
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    I think the one you are looking at may be fine. This is the one that's been sitting in my "watch' folder for some time and, I think people have had some problems with.

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/RGB-400mw-La...item1c2e034ad2

    Shame, because I'd like to try it out at that price but, until I hear something good, I'm a little hesitant.

  3. #3
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    Hello,

    I have a 400mw unit like the one Bradfo69 posted about. I bought it in November 2012 for $145.00. I was curious how it would perform so I went for it. I am pretty new at this whole laser diode world, my first "projector" was a 5mw He-Ne into a couple of GVM-734 open loop scanners driven by a home made 8-bit DAC and amplifier.

    A couple of things I noticed about this module are:

    There is too much green. Yellow is very green heavy.
    The three colors don't line up at about 30ft. Not sure how else to explain that.

    I am not sure how much more I can help you guys out. Feel free to ask me question and I'll do my best. I can take some pictures if you like.

    ED

  4. #4
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    Ed are you able to modulate these at all? Pictures would be nice.

    Ivan
    Quote Originally Posted by ekeefe View Post
    Hello,

    I have a 400mw unit like the one Bradfo69 posted about. I bought it in November 2012 for $145.00. I was curious how it would perform so I went for it. I am pretty new at this whole laser diode world, my first "projector" was a 5mw He-Ne into a couple of GVM-734 open loop scanners driven by a home made 8-bit DAC and amplifier.

    A couple of things I noticed about this module are:

    There is too much green. Yellow is very green heavy.
    The three colors don't line up at about 30ft. Not sure how else to explain that.

    I am not sure how much more I can help you guys out. Feel free to ask me question and I'll do my best. I can take some pictures if you like.

    ED

  5. #5
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    Hello,

    Here are some photos of the RGB laser and the cheap little projector I threw together.

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    I'm not sure how to best demonstrate the laser itself, so I just did some of the test patterns in quickshow. Keep in mind these are cheap, Chinese scanners bought on eBay. They were supposed to be 30K, but I doubt it.

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    In the last two images, the dog, it is easy to see lines that are not aligned. In quickshow the dog appears orange with a red collar. On the wall the dog appears as green with a red outline. I'm sure I just need to mess with a bendable dichro mount, but it did ship this way. Like I said before, this module seems a little green heavy. That may just be because of the mis-aligned red.

    There is also a lot of noise (scatter) in the beams. I haven't open the module so I can't comment on any corrective optics. My guess is there are none.

    Please be kind critiquing my build. I have no real metal working skills, and only hand tools to work with. To make matters worse, the base plate was a steel 4U rack panel.

    @ArcDevilz: Yes, I can modulate this using TTL.

    If I can help further, just ask. I hope this was helpful.

    ED

  6. #6
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    Most of these modules seem to have an analog option that is $10 expensiver, so you can adjust the colour balance in software if necessary.
    But alignment looks very hard to adjust. It's a bit of a gamble I guess. Maybe you could just loosen the dichros then readjust them with some epoxy.

    Thanks ekeefe for the pictures. It's good to see that people got them working without blowing up the driver. That was my main concern.
    All in all, $145 for 400 mW of RGB laser power is a price I could never have imagined five years ago!

  7. #7
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    WOW!
    Nice build.
    400 mw in the palm of your hand.for 145 bux.

    Seeing that really makes me want to abandon the gas systems and just get a bunch of those.
    No more fraglie glass, no more water, no more 208 3 phase, and no more gawd awful heavy backbreaking systems to lug around.
    Will there be three phase!!!!

  8. #8
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    If I would get one of these bricks, but would replace them with Badpip 4ch driver or Flexmods , has anyone tried it out yet?

    150$ is really tempting to me :P
    Philipp Wetter

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by ekeefe View Post

    Please be kind critiquing my build. I have no real metal working skills, and only hand tools to work with. To make matters worse, the base plate was a steel 4U rack panel.

    If I can help further, just ask. I hope this was helpful.

    ED
    Looks fine to me. I might even be "just" about skilled enough to do that! And that's exactly what I envisioned when I saw these for the first time. Thanks for the pic's! I agree it's nice to see someone have success with these. I'm sure we'll begin to see more modules like this as time goes on.

  10. #10
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    Hello,

    Thanks guys!

    I have one of Badpip's 4ch drivers I bought off eBay and would like to give it try with this unit. I'm just not sure about setting the levels. I would prefer to not kill this module or the driver.

    Any guidance on how to proceed would be great.

    ED

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