FLEM is *on* for Saturday, March 21st 2009 at 10 AM

[Lasernerd]

I am one for sure who fully missed the broadcast!!
i made my plans to sit back and watch and listen/learn,,
the streamcast sucked!! no blame by any means to the FLEM crew.


party on dudes!

[gottaluvlasers]

who won the dichro kit???

-Marc

[daedal]

WOW! Where do I start?

Well... I got to Tavares on Friday night. The dinner was scheduled for 8:00PM, and I believe I got there around 7:00 to 7:30 PM. The rest of the gang was already at the venue and I met up with them there where we consolidated some card (or trucks) and headed for the dinner party.

We had a table of ~15 people... magically located right below the restaurant's impressively high point in the roof. I believe it was a vaulted space for the restaurant's sign, but it worked amazingly a demo room to safely shine lasers away from the crowd and ourselves at around 50' or so high. The food was amazing, and the people were very nice and welcoming. I did see a few of the witers and waitresses (even some guests) inquiring about the oodles of laser beams and items exchanging hands during the dinner. DocJohn hands-down beat the bunch with his massive and impressive laser collection. From variable start-burst handhelds to a 300mW+ of green handheld. I should mention that we also experimented with alcohol (drinkability and laseability ).

After the dinner party We all went back to the venue for a pre-FLEM-FLEM

Everyone who was there and available made it out and we ended up watching some shows and partying until about 1:00AM or so. The sound was absolutely astonishing. When your heart beats to the music, you know you have some excellent sound! Thanx guys. Aaron brought out his new toy and I think a few people made some calls to KVANT that night That is an amazing projector!!

Saturday morning, after a heart breakfast at the Holiday Inn, I got to the venue around 9:00AM. Not many people were there, but the music was! The day got off to a great start and went on only to keep getting better and better. It was a pleasure to see familiar faces and meet some new ones.

Following are some highlights from Saturday at FLEM besides the 12 or so projectors, 3 fog machines, and window-shattering sound we had :
DocJohn is a fun dude! I hope to see video of his great dancing skills!
Thanx to Amanda and OSLS for providing the pizza.
Thanx to Bill Benner and Pangolin for the much needed LivePro demo.
Thanx to Patrick Murphy for the safety talk, and grand raffle prize of one year free ILDA membership.
Major thanx to DSLI_Jon for the astonishing outdoor laser display and my prize for the night.

Above all, thanx to everyone who made it out and made that such a great night to remember. We ended up leaving at ~2:00AM on Saturday night/Sunday morning after a winderful time, great party, fun people, lessons learned, and new and exciting new faces.

The turn-out peaked at approximately 20 people or so (from what I recall). Everyone had a great time and the meet couldn't have gone any better. Maybe if we had some ribs (300EVIL), but that's okay .

Hope to hear from the other attendees soon as well.

--DDL

[daedal]

who won the dichro kit???

-Marc

I believe that would be Aaron (allthatwhichis).

--DDL

[GooeyGus]

This applies to the dual discharge 4240N head, as well as the smaller "4xxx" series. I'm not sure about that 4050, though. That sounds weird. My supply has the 'rf style' connectors but its just HV going through them.

All these refer to the card inside the head. here's the info I have:

The loop wire is the common. Where it says "TP 4-6" it means test the voltage between test points (the little poles sticking out of the PCB with eyelet holes on top) 4 and 6.
TP1 - Com: Tube Voltage, this can be 6 - 7.5V, optimum is 6.5V. As the Cd level is increased the tube voltage will go down to a certain level.
TP4 - 5: Cadmium heater set point, .8 - 1.2/1.3V make slow adjustments to this and monitor the power this is what you want to use for optimum power.
TP4 - 6: is the actual Cd temperature, this trails the cadmium set point (TP4 - 5) by no more than .1V. (but make sure the head is warmed up and stabilized first)
The Cadmium set pot is the one between TP5 - 6 near the bottom right component side

My head was happy with a cadmium heater set point of .87V. The more you turn the pot clockwise, the lower the voltage will be. BUT I think lower voltage reading equals a higher cd heater temp, but I could be wrong.

Good luck! Maybe snap some pictures of that 4050. I wouldn't think the aom would have anything to do with an error in the PSU but then again I dont really know anything about that setup. Make sure the He heater and Cd heaters are plugged in, that's about all I can think of. Does the tube even try to start? Does the PSU have a 'remote' plug in the back that requires a jumper to defeat an interlock?

As far as getting hard to start tubes to light, you can use an oudin coil but I would be very careful. After doing this I had a supply fail, but it could have just been complete coincidence. Just turn it down to super low voltage and zap the tube halfway between the anode and cathode.

[daedal]

This applies to the dual discharge 4240N head, as well as the smaller "4xxx" series. I'm not sure about that 4050, though. That sounds weird. My supply has the 'rf style' connectors but its just HV going through them.

All these refer to the card inside the head. here's the info I have:

The loop wire is the common. Where it says "TP 4-6" it means test the voltage between test points (the little poles sticking out of the PCB with eyelet holes on top) 4 and 6.
TP1 - Com: Tube Voltage, this can be 6 - 7.5V, optimum is 6.5V. As the Cd level is increased the tube voltage will go down to a certain level.
TP4 - 5: Cadmium heater set point, .8 - 1.2/1.3V make slow adjustments to this and monitor the power this is what you want to use for optimum power.
TP4 - 6: is the actual Cd temperature, this trails the cadmium set point (TP4 - 5) by no more than .1V. (but make sure the head is warmed up and stabilized first)
The Cadmium set pot is the one between TP5 - 6 near the bottom right component side

My head was happy with a cadmium heater set point of .87V. The more you turn the pot clockwise, the lower the voltage will be. BUT I think lower voltage reading equals a higher cd heater temp, but I could be wrong.

Good luck! Maybe snap some pictures of that 4050. I wouldn't think the aom would have anything to do with an error in the PSU but then again I dont really know anything about that setup. Make sure the He heater and Cd heaters are plugged in, that's about all I can think of. Does the tube even try to start? Does the PSU have a 'remote' plug in the back that requires a jumper to defeat an interlock?

As far as getting hard to start tubes to light, you can use an oudin coil but I would be very careful. After doing this I had a supply fail, but it could have just been complete coincidence. Just turn it down to super low voltage and zap the tube halfway between the anode and cathode.

Thank you very much for the reply. Here are some pictures showing my tube in operation. If anything else is needed please let me know. I will also add the pictures of the smaller tube later on. The second one does not turn on at all. The supply seems to try and flash (sparks oddly visible in the ballast), but it will not ionize.

http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...php?albumid=86

Thank you;
DDL

[allthatwhichis]

I apologize for the lack of broadcast ability. Signal sucked and for some reason my laptop feed crapped on me when we logged Adam in to ustream to use his account as it had the audio on the event page. To make it up, I am broadcasting now,

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/allthats-cam

with a decent feed. (Admin you are the MAN!!!)

Full review of the event and mystery projector to come. And yes, I won the dichro set!!!

[GooeyGus]

Thank you very much for the reply. Here are some pictures showing my tube in operation. If anything else is needed please let me know. I will also add the pictures of the smaller tube later on. The second one does not turn on at all. The supply seems to try and flash (sparks oddly visible in the ballast), but it will not ionize.

http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...php?albumid=86

Thank you;
DDL

try removing the covers from the ballast resistors. If the tube is a bit high pressure it will arc over to the covers, which can be really hard on the PSU. My head was doing this when I first got it, but after about 35 hours of runtime it is back to normal. Starts up instantly!

As far as the pictures go, it looks like you're vaporizing too much cadmium. It could be that the cadmium temperature sensor is not working or became disconnected somehow, giving you the 'open loop' light. Also, this would cause the Cd heater to just keep getting hotter and hotter because the feedback sensor see's that the cadmium is not up to the expected temperature. That's just a hunch. That is a neat setup though! What year is it? The tube looks identical to mine except I think that big thing on the OC end of your head may be an AOM or something... mine doesn't have that, and it looks like your cadmium reservoir is sideways whereas mine is vertical. Also, my psu is just one unit rather than the three separate units. Another thing to think about, although I'm sure you've made sure everything is in the right spot, is that those little gray connectors are what control the systems in the head (cd pressure, tube voltage, He heater, etc etc). Is it possible that some of them have been mixed up? It looks like you have about 4 different grey connectors there. Does only one come from the head?

It could also be that the head needs more helium, but this is rarely the case as the He reservoir leaks a tiny bit in storage, usually causing a bit too much He pressure. Is the He heater plugged in?

[daedal]

try removing the covers from the ballast resistors. If the tube is a bit high pressure it will arc over to the covers, which can be really hard on the PSU. My head was doing this when I first got it, but after about 35 hours of runtime it is back to normal. Starts up instantly!

As far as the pictures go, it looks like you're vaporizing too much cadmium. It could be that the cadmium temperature sensor is not working or became disconnected somehow, giving you the 'open loop' light. Also, this would cause the Cd heater to just keep getting hotter and hotter because the feedback sensor see's that the cadmium is not up to the expected temperature. That's just a hunch. That is a neat setup though! What year is it? The tube looks identical to mine except I think that big thing on the OC end of your head may be an AOM or something... mine doesn't have that, and it looks like your cadmium reservoir is sideways whereas mine is vertical. Also, my psu is just one unit rather than the three separate units. Another thing to think about, although I'm sure you've made sure everything is in the right spot, is that those little gray connectors are what control the systems in the head (cd pressure, tube voltage, He heater, etc etc). Is it possible that some of them have been mixed up? It looks like you have about 4 different grey connectors there. Does only one come from the head?

It could also be that the head needs more helium, but this is rarely the case as the He reservoir leaks a tiny bit in storage, usually causing a bit too much He pressure. Is the He heater plugged in?

Response here to minimize thread clutter and improve visibility

http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...8432#post88432

--DDL

[Stuka]

Just wanna' add -

This was a VERY cool gathering!!
Even though I didn't bring gear to this one, I had a great time!

Thanks to everyone who showed up, brought gear, and made it such a great event!

I would like to add my thanks to Amanda, Bill, and Patrick for showing up and lending such great - and free - support to all us crazy hobbiests!

300Evil - you're a madman!! Wake up in Wisconsin on Thursday, and show up at FLEM in Tavares, Florida -unannounced - on Friday!!

DSLI Jon - Thanks for lugging the gear and showing us some REALLY cool toys!! If you never decide to offload the 4 Watts of 532 you demo'd - dibbs!!

Allthat... - thanks for providing the shirts on such short notice!
AND, your new 1 watt mini RGB rig ROCKS!!!

Mophead - yeah, you're hooked; welcome to the craziness!!

Daedal - COOL rig! Any chance you'll build my next projector

Doc - Awesome pointers, and killer dance moves - you deserve you're own broadcast segment at the next event!!

LJ, Matthew, Kathy (and anyone else I forgot ) - awesome to meet you guys, and looking forward to what you come up with for SELEM!!

Buffo, DZ - thanks for the making the arrangements, supplying KILLER sound, the door prizes, the Pink Floyd, etc. etc. ...

BUT -
we need more cowbell!!

Looking forward to seeing everyone at SELEM 2009!!