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Thread: Group Buy Compact 506 Complete Set

  1. #61
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    Thanks for the feedback guys, I'll make sure we get you a response after the holiday weekend.

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    Warning, just increasing the voltages on many galvo amps WILL generally run a risk of frying the position sensors in your 506s.

    Steve
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    (Warning, just increasing the voltages on many galvo amps WILL generally run a risk of frying the position sensors in your 506s. )

    I do appreciate the caution, Steve. After investigating the driver board design, I decided that ! should not go over +- 15 volts as the op amps
    and power amp chips are rated for 18 V maximum. I am going to take the chance with my galvos. I have a +- 15V module power supply coming next week (Delta S24DE15001BDFA) I will be using it, as my projector is battery powered and the input voltage can vary from 9 to 15 Vdc .

    I am not sure how much of a performance boost I will get, if any, but I will let you know

  4. #64
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    @Swammi: It looks to me like the tuning of the X axis isn't perfect, and that servo gain will need to be increased, and both HFD and LFD will also need to be increased. But I can not tell to 1000000% just by looking at the pictures.

    For everyone else, here's the deal. This amplifier is the servo-portion of the consumer product we designed. The consumer product was dictated to run on only 12V plug in the wall. For the stuff Swammi cranks through it using LSX, I doubt power consumption will exceed 1 amp (because of the vector nature of LSX and all LDS derivatives such as Phoenix, Dynamics, etc. etc. and so on). For people cranking LD2000 and QS stuff through it, you'd probably get up to 1.5 amps average at the power supply. At least that's what we've seen.

    I have the instantaneous peak current limit for 2.75 amps because that's all you can achieve at 12 volts. Remember and as pointed out by someone else -- this amp runs on a SINGLE +12 volts supply -- not + and - 24 or 28 as all others do!! With DT40 or similar drivers running off of +/-24 volts, peak instantaneous current exceeds 5 amps and if you run them at +/-30 volts, you'd probably get above 6 amps.

    Torque is proportional to current and "size" is proportional to torque, so 5 amps being nearly double of the 2.75 for this little amp means you'd be able to scan nearly twice as wide with DT40 and similar drivers.
    Speed (i.e. "K") is proportional to current squared. The bottom line is that it's possible to achieve speeds up to 50K with DT40 drivers, but "only" 30K with these little +12V drivers.

    The spec put out by the consumer company for whom we designed the product was "standard 30K graphics" and these amps and scanners easily achieve that at only this +12V supply and little current from the tiny AC wall-pack supply that will be used.

    They achieve 8 degrees at 30K with our standard 3mm mirrors, but the mirrors shown in Swammi's picture (and generally delivered to X-Laser) are our standard 4mm mirrors, whose inertia is nearly double that of our 3mm mirrors.

    "Size" is inversely proportional to inertia, so doubling inertia means you cut the size in half. So it is not surprising that with these mirrors you get only around 5 degrees at 30K.

    --------------------------------------------------

    NOTE TO ANYONE FOR WHOM THESE SPECS DO NOT SOUND IMPRESSIVE

    Honestly I hate the "K at degrees" thing, because it makes the system sound underwhelming -- especially since we like to tell the truth at Pangolin and not exaggerate specs... Over the weekend I had these very scanners and very amps running our original Lightspeed Creation demo at 60 degrees with no problem and little distortion (and zero heat at the scanner). It's impressive what can be done with such small scanners and such a small amount of actual power from the power supply, despite the low sounding "K at degrees" figures.

    Plus from posts put out by at least one other scanner manufacturer, it seems that "K at degrees" can be abused -- the same way mirror sizes can be abused. (How you get a 5mm beam to reflect off of a mirror barely wider than 5mm itself still baffles us at Pangolin...) If we were to measure these scanners the way some manufacturers apparently do, we'd have to say that the mirrors can handle a 10mm beam and project it at a rate of a zillion K and a jillion degrees. So don't despair!

    Actual beam path, beam sizes, beam shapes, and all other engineering drawings and specs can be found on our datasheets (wow actual datasheets!) here:
    http://www.scannermax.com/products/s...s/compact-506/


    Bill
    Last edited by Pangolin; 07-04-2015 at 22:02.

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by laserbiker View Post
    After investigating the driver board design, I decided that ! should not go over +- 15 volts as the op amps and power amp chips are rated for 18 V maximum.
    Nope! The amplifier system as a whole is rated for 12 volts -- nothing more. If you put more voltage into it, you'll find that the output stage momentarily shuts down, restarts, shuts down, restarts, etc. On the consumer product we actually put a "crowbar" (look it up on Wikipedia) across the power input, to make sure it doesn't exceed 13 volts (which would only happen in the event of a lightning strike).

    Even if this didn't happen, the design of the circuit purposely limits the instantaneous peak current to 2.75 amps. Even if you could run it off 220 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6si8Xp8P-M) performance won't be increased...

    Bill

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    Thank you all for enlightening me on these amplifiers. I guess I was not paying attention when it was mentioned that the -12 volt was generated internally. As it turns out it just runs the op amps.
    Obviously 12V to the coils will not produce the torque that 24V differential will produce. Too bad. If a 12 V to +- 12V (Or higher) converter and upgraded amplifier had been incorporated. This would have been a great system.
    I am cannibalizing one of my projectors to extract the "Red board" Drivers that work so well with my previous 506 scanners. I will generate the +- 24V a couple of very compact dc/ dc converters. The downside to this is more weight for additional fan and heatsink plus the run time on my 5A batteries will be reduced.Click image for larger version. 

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  7. #67
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    Hi Folks,

    Thanks to Bill for chiming in over the weekend. As he's mentioned, this is a low power system, and if you're looking to really push the 506s to their limit, this really isn't the driver for you--it simply can't throw as much power at the coils as something like a DT40 amp can. That said, it's still a quite capable scanner set when used with its limitations in mind.

    As far as tuning, it does look like Swami's set could be doing a bit better. I'll make sure that future scanner sets we ship out get a bit more attention, but the tuning process is basically the same with this scanner set as any other (a bit simpler, in fact, since there's no linearity or notch filter adjustment to worry about), so if you'd like to get them running a little better in the meantime I'd refer you to one of the existing scanner tuning guides--just be aware that the direction of rotation on the trimpots is going to be reversed as compared to some other scanner drivers you may be used to. This being a low power driver combined with the ruggedness of the 506s makes this a very forgiving scanner set to tune. That's not to say that you should tune them into wild oscillation and leave them there, but it's much harder to damage these scanners through clumsy tuning than, say, a set of DT40s.

    We appreciate your feedback, so thanks to everyone who's chimed in. We're keeping an eye on this thread, or if you need immediate assistance, you can always reach out to us directly.

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by aberry View Post
    Hi Folks,

    Thanks to Bill for chiming in over the weekend. As he's mentioned, this is a low power system, and if you're looking to really push the 506s to their limit, this really isn't the driver for you--it simply can't throw as much power at the coils as something like a DT40 amp can. That said, it's still a quite capable scanner set when used with its limitations in mind.

    As far as tuning, it does look like Swami's set could be doing a bit better. I'll make sure that future scanner sets we ship out get a bit more attention, but the tuning process is basically the same with this scanner set as any other (a bit simpler, in fact, since there's no linearity or notch filter adjustment to worry about), so if you'd like to get them running a little better in the meantime I'd refer you to one of the existing scanner tuning guides--just be aware that the direction of rotation on the trimpots is going to be reversed as compared to some other scanner drivers you may be used to. This being a low power driver combined with the ruggedness of the 506s makes this a very forgiving scanner set to tune. That's not to say that you should tune them into wild oscillation and leave them there, but it's much harder to damage these scanners through clumsy tuning than, say, a set of DT40s.

    We appreciate your feedback, so thanks to everyone who's chimed in. We're keeping an eye on this thread, or if you need immediate assistance, you can always reach out to us directly.
    aberry,

    please post test patterns of your amp+galvos scanning the standard test pattern suite (including ilda12k) at 30kpps and 8 degrees.

    the set i received does not give acceptable performance. this may be a tuning issue, although other users are encountering the same issue and bill's post suggests it is impossible for the units as provided to display ilda12k at more than ~5 degrees (apologies to bill if i misread his post).

    if the problems are more profound than a tuning issue. i will have to return my set.

    thank you.
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  10. #70
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    I also caught something in this thread that disturbs me a little. It was stated somewhere here that they would be sent with instructions and tuning guide and yet Swami claims to have received neither.

    Love ya guys but, in following this thread, and from the outside looking in, it kinda looks like there were a few blunders here. And it pains me to say anything negative about X-Laser and X-Laser peeps.

    I admit I "almost" bit on set with this group buy but, with the advent of a retail box version with Mach Mini amps from Pangolin potentially being ready (finally) by SELEM, I've continued to stay out of ALL of the Compact 506 business going on over the past few years. Contrary to popular opinion.... I don't buy "everything" that comes along. But.... when they're finally, really 100% ready for prime time retail sales, I'm probably getting a pile of them and being broke for awhile.
    PM Sent...

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