Announcing ILDAC-32 - an ESP-32 based DAC for ILDA projectors

[swamidog]

sure, someone could use a pi, a dac, and a hacked sound card / amp....

or they could just use this tiny awesome little widget that hank made. it's smaller, cheaper, easier, has more features, and a great phone interface.

i think you're trying to shoe horn in an awkward solution to a problem that's already been solved in an elegant way.

Yes. I see the website is down. Thanks. It's up now.

Actually a Raspberry Pi + a USB sound device + a LaserBoy Correction Amp is all you need to do what your device does.

Well, I haven't written a remote control interface for it, so using a cell phone to control it would be a bit of a challenge, but VNC would make it accessible.

With that you would have 8 channels of 16 bit 48KHz DAC. It could also have an external HD for terabytes of show material.

You don't need LaserBoy to play wave files. You just need it to make them from ILDA, DXF or TXT.

But you can run LaserBoy on a Raspberry Pi!

I suspect your device has something similar to the LaserBoy Correction Amp. It adds a fixed offset null voltage to the output of every DAC channel and gives it enough gain to drive a laser projector.

The modification to the sound device is just to tack wires on the DAC side of the DC blocking caps.

http://laserboy.org/forum/index.php?topic=561.0


...
manifesto?
...

If you have written all the code to convert ILDA to wav with optimization and all that, you should consider including LaserBoy wave formatting data. It's some stuff added to the wav header and binary markers in the color channels, so a wav can be opened in LB or any other app that knows what to look for and you get your frames back with proper time / color alignment. This makes wav a fully functional storage format for laser vector art.

[HankLloydRight]

sure, someone could use a pi, a dac, and a hacked sound card / amp....
or they could just use this tiny awesome little widget that hank made. it's smaller, cheaper, easier, has more features, and a great phone interface.

Thank you Swamidog! And thanks for your help with the video laser demos. I still have several more to convert to video.

If you have written all the code to convert ILDA to wav with optimization and all that, you should consider including LaserBoy wave formatting data. It's some stuff added to the wav header and binary markers in the color channels, so a wav can be opened in LB or any other app that knows what to look for and you get your frames back with proper time / color alignment. This makes wav a fully functional storage format for laser vector art.

Ok, I think you're kind-of missing the point of the device here and asserting or assuming that it's something that it's not. This is just a CONTENT PLAYER. It's not competing with Laserboy in any fashion. And I did NOT write any code to convert ILDA to WAV or WAV to ILDA. In fact the device doesn't write out any data or formats at all.

All it does simply is read in the XY/RGB points from ILDA files or WAV files, and sends those points to DACs, which then sends those points to op-amps, which then sends those points to an ILDA projector. And in the case of ILDAC-32-WAV, two audio channels are likelwise converted to analog for output. That's really it.

[james]

What is awkward or less elegant than a 16-bit DAC compared to a 12-bit DAC?

You can call it a sound card or not. It's no less a DAC.

A Pi and a modified USB sound device are less than $200.

It's a whole freakin' computer that runs Linux and has HDMI!

If you are reading directly from ILDA and sending the values to the DAC, how are you normalizing it or optimizing it for timed display?

[HankLloydRight]

You can call it a sound card or not. It's no less a DAC.
A Pi and a modified USB sound device are less than $200.
It's a whole freakin' computer that runs Linux and has HDMI!

Sure, but how do you control it? VNC to a text-mode windows app. Not very user friendly from a cell phone.



I think most people would prefer to use the built-in web server to control ILDAC-32 with any web browser on any device, or use the cross-platform mobile app. Just watch the videos on my website to see how it all works together.

But I'm not here to compete with you, or Laserboy, or a hacked together stack of off-the-shelf components to approximate the same functionality.
And I'm not opposed to anyone who wants to try out a DIY solution to do the same thing as ILDAC-32.
In fact that's really great if people want to learn how it all works (which is exactly where I started with this project).

I'm here simply offering a complete, self-contained unit (which also has a four-line OLED status display) and includes all the software I've personally written for it -- the firmware for the device, the website backend, the mobile apps, and the glue that pieces them all together. I also personally designed the schematics and manufactured the PCB boards to make it a one-stop-shop if people want a simple device to play ILDA files/gobos/cues, test patterns, lumia cues, static beams, or 8-channel WAV files with audio. It's "plug-and-play". I don't think you can say the same thing about the pi+DAC+sound card+LaserboyAmp stack.

If you are reading directly from ILDA and sending the values to the DAC, how are you normalizing it or optimizing it for timed display?

I'm not. All the ILDA files I have from the PL FTP repository and other places don't have any time codes for timed display, so they play as fast as the user has the scan rate set for.
If the scan rate is set for 25kppps, that's what's how fast the ILDA files are being played, then it repeats. 99% of the ILDA files in the collection are single frame or very short animations.
And the software allows you to slow down the animations if you like.

[swamidog]

so, what i don't understand is why you're trying to negate all the work hank did on his excellent little widget.

yes, there are alternate ways of playing wave files to ilda. there are none that are so elegant and easy to use.

why not just give hank some kudos as opposed to suggesting alternative approaches that are more cumbersome and less feature rich?

What is awkward or less elegant than a 16-bit DAC compared to a 12-bit DAC?

You can call it a sound card or not. It's no less a DAC.

A Pi and a modified USB sound device are less than $200.

It's a whole freakin' computer that runs Linux and has HDMI!

If you are reading directly from ILDA and sending the values to the DAC, how are you normalizing it or optimizing it for timed display?

[james]

I'm not trying to negate anything. We're chatting about stuff that goes on in the space between my ears.

I do find it interesting that using the wav file is cool, as long as it isn't associated with LaserBoy in any way. I remember a lot of negativity when I was promoting that idea going on 2 decades ago.

Not all ilda frames have dwell or span points.

You can use any wave player on a Pi, gui or cli. LaserBoy has nothing to do with playing waves.

[swamidog]

there is a difference in using a standalone wave to ilda player as a compact device for quick and easy playback of baked wave show files vs. using wave files as the super awkward format during show creation and editing

I'm not trying to negate anything. We're chatting about stuff that goes on in the space between my ears.

I do find it interesting that using the wav file is cool, as long as it isn't associated with LaserBoy in any way. I remember a lot of negativity when I was promoting that idea going on 2 decades ago.

Not all ilda frames have dwell or span points.

[HankLloydRight]

I do find it interesting that using the wav file is cool, as long as it isn't associated with LaserBoy in any way.

Now you're confusing me. When/why/what did I ever say what I was doing was "associated with Laserboy"?

You make it sound like any laser based 8-channel WAV file format is your proprietary intellectual property.

I remember a lot of negativity when I was promoting that idea going on 2 decades ago.

Please explain, what idea?
Playing laser show WAV files on a projector?
Isn't that how many (most?) laser shows are distributed these days, converted from old ADAT tapes?

Not all ilda frames have dwell or span points.

I've been playing literally thousands of the ILDA files in the PL FTP repository, and I've never had a problem displaying them.

You can use any wave player on a Pi, gui or cli. LaserBoy has nothing to do with playing waves.

Ok, my mistake, sorry. You don't need LaserBoy on a RPi to play WAV files.
But you still need some software to do it and some way to control that software remotely on a cell phone.
And I don't think VNC is the solution for that.

[james]

there is a difference in using a standalone wave to ilda player as a compact device for quick and easy playback of baked wave show files vs. using wave files as the super awkward format during show creation and editing

That's exactly what I'm talking about.

"Super awkward" in what way?

If you're saying the only good wav is a recording of a laser dac, that is absurd.

[james]

Yes. I'm well aware of the fact that lots of shows are saved on ADAT and transcribed to wave. I have sent LaserBoy DACs literally all over the world to people doing just that.