Hello Good (and not so good ) Laser People!
As some of you know, I've been working on trying to advance glow in the dark projector builds and the associated artwork for the past couple years. I've made some advancements since I last posted on this topic about 18 months ago, so I thought I'd share where I've gotten to.
In short, after several variations of projector builds I have started building combo-projectors that can do RGB as well as glow in the dark 405nm work. Now sure, you could just swap out your 450nm diodes out with 405nm and call it a day. My approach is slightly more complicated than that. My goal has been to be able to do Glow In the Dark (GITD) artwork and quality RGB graphics on the same surface. Swapping out your blues with 405nm diodes wouldn't allow you to do graphics with blue without leaving streaks . . and we can't have that! After trials with different approaches, I built this projector.
This projector features a 473nm single mode diode for blue graphics. Even a static beam of 473nm is almost completely non-luminescent on high quality glow in the dark paint. Of course reds and greens have no luminescent effect on GITD paint, so streakless RGB graphics are a done-deal!
This model also features CT-6210 galvos with the Catweasel amps from Medialas, so 40Kpps wide graphics are achievable. For glow in the dark, I have focused and unfocused 405nm sources so I can do GITD artwork that has soft fades, fills, as well as tight lines. I believe these fills and soft brushed effects are really useful to add depth to GITD artwork. This allows us laserists to do what the GITD street artists do with 405nm flashlights, but faster, with the push of a button, and with a level of detail you simply can't do by hand.
To switch between GITD and regular RGB graphics, I've been employing DMX switchers built into the projector. This avoids the whole use of deep blue ILDA lines and such. I have also built a version that has manual control of the RGB/GITD option or DMX control if you'd prefer.
I'm still a bit of a newb at utilizing this approach to create GITD art, but here's a few examples of what I've been doing:
(This one uses three GITD projectors to draw the artwork.)
(This is a single GITD projector.)
(This uses three GITD projectors.)
(This is a single GITD projector.)
and finally this complicated piece which has 45,000 hand traced points (no interpolation) being drawn with three projectors:
Anyway, I'm having fun with this stuff and incorporating it into shows in my home environment. I'll post some of that work soon.
Thanks for reading!
-David