Scannermax 506s

[norty303]

Just to add, because you didn't answer Bill, yes a number of lenses have been given away at LEMs or donated as prizes.

[absolom7691]

Edison, you are truly speaking from a point of ignorance about Bill being in it, only for the money. Sure, business is business but Bill has been very generous to me. If you want to call that a business practice of keeping me as a Pangolin customer then so be it. I will say this though, in my 20+ years of meddling in this this hobby, I have never had any other person hook me up the way Bill has. The only other person that came close was Mike Kenny and all he did was give me some of MWK's old junk that would have likely been sent to the dumpster. I have an extremely strong feeling that I am not the only one Bill has been generous to.

Christ, why does every thread that has a Pangolin product in it turn into a Bill slam-fest???

[White-Light]

During that time every customer that for example buys a module or something else will recieve info about new things and if i can upgrade or improve their former purchased module i will do that for minimal cost.

Pangolin offer improvements for free - all software packages come with lifetime free updates in a market where every other company I know of charges for software updates. In fact many major Pangolin upgrades come for free as well eg. QS 1.0 to 2.0, Beyond 1.0 to 2.0. So it's not just you that is generous Edison. Pangolin also believe in looking after their customers and do it not just for minimal cost, but no cost.

I also know of a number of people on here who've had a fault with a FB3 or Qm2000, way out of any warranty period, and have had it repaired by Pangolin free of charge.

THAT is what i call helping people.

Me too and kudos to both you and Pangolin for doing that.

I don,t have to do that since the module works fine as it is but i think that once the customer spends that kind of money on your behalf you can at least help him to the latest improvements. You should always go the extra mile even when it sometimes cost you money when you have a bussiness.

Exact same sentiment here. Pangolin don't have to provide free software updates to working software that adds extra features. Every other company in the market I know of charges for software updates. Beyond 1.0 to 2.0 adds literally hundreds of extra pro level features. When QS or Beyond are working fine, Pangolin could just leave the customer on the version they purchased but they don't. Just like you they upgrade the customer for free for the exact same reasons you do the similar for your customers, to go the extra mile.

What i don,t do is represents myself as a company that " Helps" the hobbymarket to cheaper products.

No disrespect but to my knowledge you don't produce cheaper products. You represent yourself as being at the top of the market alongside Kvant. Again, all kudos to you for being upfront and honest about your position and the fact that you put quality above pricing.

However, you can't criticise Pangolin here.

For sure they make money out of their products. But if they also research a way of making a product cheaper as with their 506 scanners, then they are also bringing the price down for the hobbyist.

Don't forget, they don't have to make the price cheaper. 99% of companies in this world would sell the new product to the customer for the same price as the old and simply increase their own profits from the reduced manufacturing costs. Pangolin instead maintain the same profit margin and pass those savings onto the customer. That is helping the hobbyist. They don't have to sell cheaper, they could increase their own profits, but they choose to sell cheaper to help the hobbyist. Do they increase their own market share by doing so? Quite possibly, but does that cancel out the difference between the greater profit margin and lower sales and the lower profit margin and higher sales? Maybe. But it's a chance. They could quite easily sit back on a higher profit margin and charge customers a higher price without any risk of making a lower profit than they might otherwise make.

Pangolin makes money and has bennefit from the hobbymarket and the hobbyists have bennefit from pangolin.

Exactly the same is true for you Edison. You make sales on here and to hobbyists so you're in exactly the same position.

Ultimately, it's a symbiotic relationship. They help the hobbyist and the hobbyist helps them.

Many people say that pangolin helps them with every issue that they have when it comes to software or something else. That is not helping , that is called service and you payed for it already since that is in the price of the purchased software package (when it concerns quickshow , beyond or what not).

As for help being a service, you make a car analogy, and I seem to remember that if you go to a car dealership with fault then unless your car is in warranty you have to pay. Same with updates, if the manufacturer brings out a face lifted version, you don't get it for free. You do with Pangolin and that applies indefinitely in a market where every other software manufacturer I know of charges for updates and in some cases help.

One thing is sure when every schoolboy can afford a 5 watt cheap china box accidents will happen. Great that everything is dirt cheap!!!

I have to wonder if this is the real motivation for the criticism. In a market where you're trying to sell to the top end, perhaps you resent the fact that quality projectors such as Eightonlight are becoming cheaper and cheaper.

My personal advice would be take advantage. Pangolin are making new scanners that allegedly perform like Cambridge at 30K for a bargain price and they're doing good discounts to OEM manufacturers. The best way to make yourself more competitive would be to start fitting 506's yourself. That way you reduce your own overheads whilst producing a high end product, so you can either make better margins or sell at a reduced price.

And why do you think that is? Because every schoolboy can buy a projector nowadays for dirt cheap that does things for a free beer and some traveling money and ruins the market. If people would ask a reasonable amount of money for doing shows they could invest in safetylenses and doing a safetycourse. So we are back where we started. Lets make high powered projectors dirt cheap and available to everyone. I can see the headlines already: 15 year old boy blinds 10 people with lasershow........

There has to be some responsibility on the part of persons other than the industry here. What's to stop a 15 year old boy buying a high power projector of you Edison? You make the assumption that all 15 year old boys are short of money. We've already had DJ Allen on here who clearly had very deep pockets for a young lad and when I was at school, a boy in my year was bought a brand new Golf GTI 16V for his 16th birthday by his parents. So its not true that all 15 year old boys have shallow pockets. Its also not true that it takes a higher powered projector to cause an accident. It makes it more likely yes. But equally, you can already go out without deep pockets and buy a 1W laser on ebay for only a few hundred £ / e / $ and cause damage. It's just like the boy I knew at school. Not everyone can afford a GTI and being a faster car makes it more likely he may have an accident, but equally people everyday are injured by young lads in Ford Fiestas. Its not the car but the way its used and exactly the same is true with projectors. There has to be some responsibility on club owners here to ensure that those persons doing shows are properly qualified to do so. Simply blaming Ford for selling cars or the Chinese or Edison for selling projectors, isn't the answer.

[White-Light]

Christ, why does every thread that has a Pangolin product in it turn into a Bill slam-fest???

+1.

Microsoft effect. Everybody hates the big guy. Anyway to get back on topic...

I too am eagerly awaiting Steve's tests.

[edison]

Well if fewer people owned lasers, PL and Laser Pointer Forums wouldn't be where it is today! Also, if there are fewer laser shows, then laser shows would be less popular. It would mean that actually there would be FEWER sales for Edison, and FEWER people asking for laser shows to be done by Andy!

I disagree. There are 2 markets , the lower quality and higher quality market. The lower quality market is expanding by manufacturing cheaper products so more people can afford it. To make things cheap you can increase the quantity of manufacturing. The bigger the quantity the lower the costs. When you want to have things dirt cheap go to china and do mass production overthere so the cost or 10x lower then in western countries. Result is that people in western countries lose there job but they can buy a cheap projector. In 50 years from now the economy is totally turned so china makes the rules. With fewer lasershows a lasershow would be something still special but you already see that the quality of lasershows is going down since every schoolguy can afford a 3 watt RGB. The event organizing companies hire more and more these 15 year old school guys for a lasershow since the charge next to nothing because they don,t make a living out of it. The event organizing companies don,t have a clue how a good lasershow should look like because they only go for price. The safety goes also down the drain since schoolboy hasn,t got a clue about safety and can,t afford that expencive safetylens. He also will not be able to afford good quality equipment since he doesn,t earn that money to invest. So in the future we will see that the lower market will get higher in power and comes with a pangolin quickshow package and scanners from pangolin. The high quallity market will have probably also scanners in projectors from pangolin as they can do things cheaper then a smaller company like Eyemagic. So goliath steps on david so to speak. Its all about money plain and simple.

We're way off the topic of this thread. However, I can prove that I came up with the idea of a "split diopter" to be used for this purpose more than a decade ago, to be used at a theme park installation in Orlando. I can prove it because I applied for a provisional patent on the idea at that time. Later I got involved with Jeremy, and we both found that my idea of the split diopter had a problem -- a surprising problem whereby when the laser crosses the split in the lens it causes all kinds of interference and undesirable artifacts. So Jeremy and I jointly explored different ways to make the base idea better.

It was Jeremy's idea to cut the lens in half -- an idea I didn't think would work (because what's the difference between a single lens with two focal lengths, and a lens cut in half) but after testing, we found that it did work! Then we spent another six months actually making the concept of a "lens cut in half" manufacturable in a consistent and affordable way.

So that's the whole story, and many people on PL already know this story because they've been following the progress throughout the years...

Bill, your a real character i must say. You know this isn,t true but you obviously are not that honest person as i initially had in mind.

Let me put the story straight. The original idea doesn,t come from you but from McCarrot. His neighbour is a dentist and gave him the lens. McCarrot used the safetylens for years in doing shows. When showing it on a Lem he handed one over to Francesco and he gave it to you. You represented McCarrot in the video as some customer who is using "your" lens but in fact he came up with the idea.
You could at least give him the Credit for it when showing it in the video by saying that he came with the original idea. To back up my story I attached a picture from the original safetylens as being used by McCarrot.

It seems easier to make money from someone else's idea than it is to develop something from scratch on your own.

I totally agree and in this case you did an excellent job!!!!

Sorry McCarrot i know this will put you maybe in a thight spot but it was nessesary to reveal the truth. Thumbs up for someone who is actually thinks about doing things save!!!!

Edison, you are truly speaking from a point of ignorance about Bill being in it, only for the money. Sure, business is business but Bill has been very generous to me

.

I,m not saying he is in the laserbussiness for the money. He just represents him as being the one who helps everyone , giving away free stuff etc. I just look at him as as a smartbussinessman. Thomas edison was more or less the same. He patented a shitload of inventions and claimed that it was his idea like for example the invention of the lightbulb. Years before that someone came up with the idea already. The safety lens is the exact same story. After having the lens in his hands he patented it and presented it as it was his idea. Well done Mr brenner i must say

Christ, why does every thread that has a Pangolin product in it turn into a Bill slam-fest???

Just putting the records straight that,s all.

[EyeMagic]

Tom, just one point. You've been producing scanners for around ten years not using a set-back, with the same mirrors for X and Y, and with your recent EMS scanners using a "unitized" mount just like everyone else in the world. Then, after you and I exchanged perhaps a dozen emails, where I sent you screen shots from Solid Works and proved that your mirrors would not do what you said they do, THEN AND ONLY THEN do you adopt what we're doing insomuch as using a set-back, breaking the mount into two pieces, and using separate mirrors for X and Y.

If it wasn't all of the debates that went back and forth through email between you and I, exactly what was it that motivated you to switch from how you had been doing it for the past ten years to how you're doing it now?

We have been producing scanners for 15 years. The very first ones were sold to Laser Electronics in UK, back in 1999.
Every step we make is customer driven. When we showed an angled L bracket for the X scanner (the EMS-4000 model) along with a rectangular mirror, no one liked it. They all preferred the orthogonal approach with same size X and Y mirrors. The angled X bracket (a primitive ''set-back'') was only used by our customers, Z-Laser in Germany (they produce precision pattern projectors for material cutouts etc). This was many years ago.

The same goes for our first gen of the 7000 series. Everyone was asking for the orthogonal mount with same size mirrors. Maybe it is because they feel more comfortable with it, despite its limitations. Maybe because they feel safer to have similar units, so they can swap a defective one without worrying if it is a X or Y.
The orthogonal mount can be used left and right, that's why it is single piece.

At some point some of our customers asked for an optimized mirror set. This required a set back mount. As we wanted to preserve the left-right input capability, we designed a 2 piece mount, which you could assemble left or right.

During our conversations, you informed me that you had this mount ready before we did, so out of respect to your saying, we discarded our design and made a totally different, 3-piece mount. (yes, believe it or not, there has to be chivalry between competitors, even if we are 15 years old and you are a new born in this market).

As you understand, again our motivation was our customers' request. Set back mounts exist for more than a decade, so its funny to believe that we have seen it from Scannermax and decided to do it...

But the funniest thing is that most of our customers still ask for the orthogonal (square) mount...I think we just found another habit to add to the ''Seven Habits...''

Anyway, I do not wish to take valuable space from your thread. It is about your product and you deserve to get full attention from the readers, without ''noise'' as mixedgas nicely said.

All the best to all,

Tom Kamaras
EyeMagic

[mixedgas]

Anyway, I do not wish to take valuable space from your thread. It is about your product and you deserve to get full attention from the readers, without ''noise'' as mixedgas nicely said.

All the best to all,

Tom Kamaras
EyeMagic[/QUOTE]

Tom, I own two pairs of EMS3080s, I'm not going to consider you noise. What I consider noise is the metric ton of posts that have nothing to do with galvanometer scanners.

Steve

[Pangolin]

Let me put the story straight. The original idea doesn,t come from you but from McCarrot.

So, I don't know the story but you know the story? Amazing!!!

First, literally nobody ever showed me this technique before I presented it. Neither Francesco nor anyone else never gave me any such lens, and so far, nobody ever mentioned to me that he had seen anything like it before. Literally up until we released our product, you won't find any forum posts or any discussion anywhere that this was a viable technique for audience scanning.

No, actually first -- the whole purpose of a provisional patent application is to prove what you knew and when you knew it. I can prove that this was a technique and idea that I came up with -- when approached to do Audience Scanning in a theme park in Orlando. I can prove that I came up with this idea more than a decade ago.

Bill

[The_Doctor]

I once asked on Usenet (alt.lasers, about 8 years ago) if a slightly diverging lens might increase scan angle for fast scans that couldn't go wide natively. I was told 'no', effectively, that it would cause more trouble than it was worth. People even mentioned the beam divergence, but no-one at the time picked up on that same divergence being an advantage; it was considered a bad side effect. If the precedent for this lens existed then, I think they would have mentioned it because the place was still fairly busy then. Like many good ideas that are being used now, it was considered a bad idea.

[planters]

What I consider noise is the metric ton of posts that have nothing to do with galvanometer scanners.

Agreed. And, there is way too much discussion about who did what first. It is what it is and rather than rehashing this any more let's assume that those that have contributed a little or a lot are well known to the majority of the participates and it's a little unseemly to focus on personal (especially our own) achievements.

Apart form Steve and Norty who have a pair and of course Bill who demonstrated a pair, is anyone else working on an application that will benefit from their (the 506's remember?) speed, small size and tracking accuracy (with the optional position sensors)?

I had a thought. What about a single color(green diode) 1W projector that could fit within the dimensions of a pack of cigarettes? If Pangolin could provide a lower cost single channel FB3, imagine mounting half a dozen on booms within a venue from previously not accessed positions.