Dull analog laser w/ Pangolin

[mccarrot]

When you start the color wizzard it will show you first the colors in circles, when for example the green circle is visible it should be at full power.

When i measuere on the input of the laser driver i measure 4.9V probbably 0.1V voltage loss over the ILDa cable.

When you contunue the colors can look more dim becouse the software is trying to balance them.

[clandestiny]

when you go through the pango color setup wizard, make sure you check the box for single color laser ( on green out ) only-
not rgb or mechanical blanking-

[fuzcub]

If it's an older QM2000 card make sure that pin 19 ( on the DB25 connector , G- signal ) needs to be connected to ground ,otherwise the green+ drive signal on pin 6 will not reach the full +5v .
I believe newer QM2000 cards have pins 18,19,20,21,22,23 grounded, so this is no longer a problem.
Bill at Pangolin is the best person to contact about this. Best done through the contact page on the pangolin website:
http://www.pangolin.com/contact/
Barney.

[DZ]

I believe newer QM2000 cards have pins 18,19,20,21,22,23 grounded, so this is no longer a problem.

It wasn't necessarily a problem, early QM2K's output differential for the color lines, grounding the "-" color lines caused a gyrator circuit to output a full 5V on the "+" line. Without it grounded, the output would be about 2.5V on the "+" line. Currently the QM2K's have the "-" outputs grounded through several SMT resistors which can be easily removed for differential instead of single ended color.

[FourDee]

When i measuere on the input of the laser driver i measure 4.9V probbably 0.1V voltage loss over the ILDa cable.

There is no 'voltage loss' on a cable when there is no current running through the cable , and a V-meter has a very high input resistance and thus a very low current draw (close to none)

[buffo]

I'm pretty sure he measured it with the projector (and thus the laser driver) still connected. So there would have been at least several milliamps of current flowing through the ILDA cable, which - depending on the length of the cable - would be enough to cause the voltage to dip by a tenth of a volt or so.

However, more to the point, even with a circle being displayed, there is still a short blanking interval. To get a 100% accurate measurement you always need to use an oscilloscope. However, for a quick and dirty measurement, you can check it with the circle being displayed and you'll be close enough for government work.

Adam

[waz]

With a plain circle displayed, I only get 3.75 volts out of the colour channel. If it's supposed to be 5 volts, maybe this is why the TTL works fine, but the analog one's dim?

[dave]

What type of laser is it?

Perhaps the current draw on the mod is dropping some volts across the protection resistors on the QM2000?

[waz]

Hi Dave, its a CNI 200mW OEM model.
Apart from this problem, the Live Pro software is awesome, you were right!

[waz]

I've been chatting with Loopee, and he's getting very similar readings on the DB25 pins to me, so he seems to think the problem is grounding related in the laser itself, which sounds very probable... now the fun begins trying to find the problem.