WICKED LASERS LASERDOCK DONGLE, A REAL GAME CHANGER. News & Reviews.

[Draco]

I have had mine for about a week now and for me this is my first DAC not based on a frustrating sound card, I was surprised how fast it got here and got it working with a half built mess of a projector, I wish it had come with an ILDA cable so I hacked up a printer cable and made that into a working ILDA cable that night.
The problem I am having now I am not ready to blame the dace as it works with it's software but I can't get it to work with Maxwell, I sent off the diagnostic infor I could fine to that developer and I am unable to test it with Spaghetti because I am having problems with the license I was set in an e-mail attachment, I can't get my system to save the file correctly it wants to change it from the correct file and extension to .txt only I have no clue to why it's doing that so that is being quite frustrating.

my mess of a projector only outputs TTL but I am going to bypass that, with it being under the laser DAC's control I think I can omit the show card or at lest take off the analog modulation signal from the buss it's self, I am unsure if I need to buffer the output from the buss? can I take the drive signals from the ILDA buss with out buffering it? Will the DAC not be damaged if I don't put some op amps in as a buff (or use some other ic)
I think I may name my projector that "scrap-e-9000ES, I will add in extra screws for the ES part, when I worked at Sony we used to call the ES line "extra screws" instead of "elevated standard" as with some gear that's all they seemed to do, add more screws and a steel plate in the bottom to make it heaver, there flagship CD player at that time still used the same optical block that's in a boom box, lol
Scrap-e- because my dichros and some other parts came from scrapped out Sony light engines, I will never use the projector for public shows anyway. All single mode diodes though. it will be my first use of a 520nm diode

one note I don't think any one mentioned is the LaserDoc can be switched from Analog to TTL, I believe that's how I got rid of the Blanking dots being visible

I am going to try connecting it to my open loop projector and see how messed up that will look, that was the whole idea to get Maxwell, I hope I can get that to work

[kecked]

Anybody crack one open to see if you can fit 506 scanners in there. Light source and for. Factor is nice. Change scanners and you got something real nice.

[JohnYayas]

Anybody crack one open to see if you can fit 506 scanners in there. Light source and for. Factor is nice. Change scanners and you got something real nice.

I have thought about that. The size limitation isn't the galvos, though. It's the amps and power supply.

[dkumpula]

The amp that X-laser USA sells is the smallest I've seen and runs with +12v. Not having yet seen the interior of the laser dock laser, I'd be willing to bet a beefed up 12v psu and the small amp could be worked in somehow, but I'd love it if someone posted interior photos of the projector so we could tell for sure.

David

[carlos3621]

This thing works great!, with a Kvant and pangolins 506 scanners!!
No flicker, super wide angles, and nice colors.
No regrets here.

[Draco]

I just had the mini usb jack fail on mine, on further investigation the back pins lifted from the pcb and sadly took the pads under it with the jack so it severed both data and power, there is no reinforcement , it's just soldered to the board with no tab or any strain relief, I tack soldered wires father back along the traces and restored operation, I am going to post that on there site as well, for those of us that use these in the field be very careful with that connector, I honestly wondered if it was a point of weakness for it

[andyf97]

I am growing to dislike mini USB jacks, they are fine for an office but weak for any serious use but given the Laserdock was designed for the home user the mini USB jack is likely as fine, of course it should be soldered correctly. Still better is to use a B-Type USB on such devices. I have a load of types of interfaces ( DMX Controllers - Time Code receivers - Laser DACS - Laser beam analyzers - Midi Interfaces and I could list another maybe 40 ) All use the B-type USB which is much stronger. I use also Raspberry Pi and do not use its mini USB at all.

My thinking is also the same for the ILDA DB25, IEEE standard connectors are much stronger than DB25 and I guess that is why serious lab gear always used IEEE connectors too. But given most DACs are heading the LAN/Wifi way, soon we'll all only use the connector for power.

I guess LaserDock guys will be happy about your post, it is always good to get manufacturing quality feedback.

I just had the mini usb jack fail on mine, on further investigation the back pins lifted from the pcb and sadly took the pads under it with the jack so it severed both data and power, there is no reinforcement , it's just soldered to the board with no tab or any strain relief, I tack soldered wires father back along the traces and restored operation, I am going to post that on there site as well, for those of us that use these in the field be very careful with that connector, I honestly wondered if it was a point of weakness for it

[kecked]

For home use wifi prob ok but it would never be allowed on stage. Too much chance of interference and locking up. Might work if it had multiple frequencies like both 2.4 and 5 at th same time so if one goes the other takes over and you have a 10 sec buffer in the fixture. Who knows.

I want cheap pairs so I can send audio from all my gear to my snake without wires. Prob is A/D is going to suck and lots of batteries. Now if they get Femto clocked 24/96.

[andyf97]

Would like to see one connected to a 30W RGB

[Draco]

Wicked lasers is offering an exchange or a refund but I soldered in wires and got the device working again and would not really not want a refund, they want me to ship it to Taiwan and that may be expensive, I kind of think I would rather have the one I got working rather then a refund and not have anything, I sent them the requested pictures and I think now they may void the warranty because of soldering wires back on to make the device work again. not sure what I want todo now.
I don't know how much the shipping charge would be, I would rather have them send me a new unit and then send mine back, even with shipping costs, my fear is sending it back to only get a refund and then not have a DAC, what I may ask is to give them some money to keep my broken one while they send me a new one as a replacement, to wickenlasers my item would basically just be scrap for them as the pads under the USB jack tore the traces off, I guess I will wait to see what happens