totally baffled newie! - made some errors!

[dodgeruk66]

Hi all, just joined the forum as I have been reading stuff as a guest for weeks!

I live in the UK and I am part time DJ interested in giving the best light show I can but I have no experience with lasers apart from the small twinkly cluster lasers and a couple of rubbish lasers I wasted my cash on that don't allow me any sort of control!

One of them would be ok but the inbuilt animations include Xmas, Halloween, birthdays and weddings - not much good for me really! Q1 is there anyway I can control it or alter the preset animations? I ot it from X-laser.hk via aliexpress

The other laser is a shinP that at least just gives a couple of shapes that pulse to the music.

I am looking for a RGB laser (pretty low power 4-500mw in total just for safety) that I can use some of the shows available to download. I cannot use iShow as I only have 64bit laptops and android tablet. Perhaps SD card? or 64bit compatible DAC and software?

I am very low on funds just now (broken turbo on car ouch ) so don't go suggesting thousands of dollars!

If anyone wants to play with my useless lases and can get them into a better shape then that may be more cost efficient and I would pay for the help! Any volunteers?

Thanks for reading

Rog

[steviobee]

Hiya Rog,

Welcome! Fairly new around these parts myself but the guys on here are a very helpful and friendly bunch. I am sure some of them will chip in here.

Where in the UK are you?

Firstly ishow is rubbish, Quickshow seems the most common option, I've found it great to get along with and it will be fine on 64bit machines.

Not sure what the two lasers you have got but I doubt they have ILDA connections on them? If not you will be better off getting one that has a better spec, what budget do you have for a new one? I reckon depending on budget you could get a fairly reasonable priced laser projector from China, a few companies are on here and it's worth getting a price list.

Also, even at that power - 4-500mW, it is worth looking a lot into the safety aspect of these!

[tonyaztec]

Hi Rog,

There are a lot of helpful members here, and lots in the UK, can you fill in your details to show us where you are, there may be a member local to you who could assist you.

Personally I would forget Ishow, and get Pangolin QS, it will seem expensive to start, but trust me Its awesome for the cash and will grow with you, also maybe look to replace your scanners with something a little faster, this will allow you to do more complex graphics and great beam shows,

Welcome to the forum.

Tony.

[dodgeruk66]

ok some brief details on my profile! Tomorrow I will get lasers out of the loft and open them up and take some pics.

btw if you ever played MobWars on Facebook then you may well know me

[Jem]

H Rog'

...And welcome to Photonlexicon

It's nice to see a DJ find us here, we're a friendly bunch, honest. I'm sure there'll be a UK member local to you who'll be able to help sort your lasers out. If not, don't worry as there's always the UK laser enthusiasts meetings (UKLEM'S), you could pop along to one of those for advice (just do a search for UKLEM).

As a DJ you'll no doubt be working fairly close to your audience, unless you're a club DJ, then you may be a greater distance away. However, the point to note here is safety, safety, safety... Oh, and did I mention safety . Lasers are absolutely beautiful to look at and produce effects like no other light source can. But, they can also be extremely dangerous, particularly where eyesight is concerned. I'm not trying to ram safety down your neck, and we certainly don't want to frighten you off, as used in the correct manner there is no effect like that of the scanned laser beam. Just be aware that in most cases you'll need to keep those beams up high above the audience's heads. Any questions, just ask away

Cheers

Jem

[WookieBoy]

Hi Rog.

And welcome once again. :-)
I'm not far from you in Sunny Luton, so maybe able to help run you through some basics if we have a free hour or two at the same time...
In the meantime, dig your boxes out and post some pictures!
We all love laser pron here and it'll help us identify your kit and what it could do...

[dodgeruk66]

hi Wookieboy, could easily pop down to Luton sometime, bring the things with me and let you have a look - maybe even let you take them apart to photo them for here because although I'm ok with pc's this is totally new to me

[The_Doctor]

...a couple of rubbish lasers I wasted my cash on that don't allow me any sort of control!
.
.
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I am very low on funds just now (broken turbo on car ouch ) so don't go suggesting thousands of dollars!

How good are you with a soldering iron? If you're ok with a bit of home-building and maybe a bit of programming, there are powerful ways to get some laser control with low money. Sam Goldwasser's Laser FAQ (More than one online copy so easily found) has a lot of good advice on diodes and drivers, which are the cheapest and least demanding way in, and also get you the most power. For control, if you decide that dedicated hardware is too expensive, you can get various high quality but older sound interface gear on eBay. Some will let you DC-couple the outputs as easily as swapping a small electrolytic capacitor with a wire shorting link. Layla 24/96 is an especially good example of this that runs on i386 (usually Windows OS) or a Mac PC. With its WDM hardware driver it's extremely low in jitter and is an excellent DAC to use by any standards.

EDIT:
These methods will take some effort to use, but it's worth exploring them because you might save thousands doing it. That way you'll have more to spend on the best scanners and scan drivers you can afford. This is the one thing we cannot improvise around on the cheap, so that's where I'd put the most money. When it comes to choosing those, ask yourself which you want most: narrow fast accurate beams to draw with, or big strong beams to light the air with. That decision will influence almost every other one.