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Thread: Has Anyone played with the AD5371?

  1. #1
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    Default Has Anyone played with the AD5371?

    40 Channel, 14 bit, Serial Input, Voltage Output DAC

    There are a bunch of places in an old school projector where D/A generated signals would be useful. Offsets (slow), spiral signals (slow), rotation signals (slow), and plane old x/y signals (oh yah, they're slow too) - and this chip with it's $99 evaluation board looks interesting... So I thought I'd ask if there's any other crazys out there...
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  2. #2
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    Haven't played with it... it is $73 single quantity... It would save board space... you could do the same for less with 5 x 8 output DACs for less money probably... sounds like a neato idea though... you could though save a bunches of money and do it in software and then just put it out a single 2 channel 16 bit dac... unless you like noise?

  3. #3
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    It's not noise that I like so much as I dislike single point failures, running everything through a single pipeline, and abandoning a bunch of hardware that's just so much fun to play with that - well it's just not going to happen.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  4. #4
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    sooo...just a question... how is a single 40 channel DAC not a single point of failure? and... there usually is a single thingy feeding it? Or else are you thinking digitally have separate digital drivers (as in physical digital output devices) for each function? I am just curious as to what you are thinking here. It sounds interesting. So I think I think your are thinking to feed the voltage output to drive VCOs and VCAs? Is that correct?

  5. #5
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    If I was driving scanners directly like you recommended there would be a pretty significant single point failure - not the DAC - the PC...

    Click image for larger version. 

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    There are lots of things that can go wrong with a 6B, but not a lot of single point failures. Even the power supplies in the control panel were doubled up, and linear supply MTBFs are way up there. The worst problem I ever had during a show was pure hell. Still while I hated that I couldn't do MY SHOW I could still do a show - the audience enjoyed it... (I sat down behind the 6B as the lights came up utterly exhausted. I'm just coming from a different (much older) paradigm - don't worry about it.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  6. #6
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    Hey no problem. It is really cool to see some different thinking. Maybe take away the PC and put the whole engine/calculator thingy inside a dedicated controller... or a few...one for each section or one for all. At least it will be confined to the console... no PC with windows to crash. What kinds of functions or modules are in the 6B? I am not familiar with any analog consoles and it would be great to see an explanation of the control panel... and then we could see how it would related to 40 channel DACs?

    Thanks!

  7. #7
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    The original Laserium Mark 4 projector was patented and the patent is here:

    https://www.google.com/patents/US4006970

    The block diagrams of the Mark 4 were the starting point for the Mark 5 & 6. There were some upgrades inside of the blocks in the patent and some other blocks added, but there's enough in the patent to get some neurons going. There are lots of places where the addition of a DPDT switch (and/or a couple of four quadrant multipliers, and/or analog switches, and/or...) would allow a module built around a micro controller and said 40 channel DAC to do a superset of the existing effects.

    It's not that you can't do anything you want on a PC or whatever. It's just - as challenging as it was to get a 35 year old console and projector back up and running (and dusting the cobwebs off my performance ability, and…) - writing software to emulate said hardware, getting the timing right to avoid digital artifacts, and interfacing it to a live control console without generating a bunch more digital artifacts, and then convincing everyone it's just the same as Vinyl - well...

    The Mark 5 never made it out into the field and a lot of the work (except the digital recording system part) made it into the Mark 6. There were a bunch of significant upgrades to the Mark 6 before I left Laser Images in the mid 80's, but somewhere along the way the version clock got reset to Mark 6B. It still sounds strange to me…
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  8. #8
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    Thanks for the link! That is really cool.

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