Gento's scanner safety board

[blowfly]

Now that you guys have been playing with the Scanfail board for a while, what do you think? Is it worth the price?

I admit that as a noob, i'm a little excited about designing my own safety circuits and stuff. It all looks pretty straightforward and will just take some time to get it right. Getting it wrong would suck though, especially if someone got hurt... so I'm wondering if it's worth shelling out the cash for a Scanfail board.

Mike

[Doc]

Now that you guys have been playing with the Scanfail board for a while, what do you think? Is it worth the price?

I admit that as a noob, i'm a little excited about designing my own safety circuits and stuff. It all looks pretty straightforward and will just take some time to get it right. Getting it wrong would suck though, especially if someone got hurt... so I'm wondering if it's worth shelling out the cash for a Scanfail board.

Mike

The scanfail is good value, definately worth the money.

[blowfly]

Glad to hear it's is as cool as it looks.

Where's the best place to buy a ScanFail kit? The web site for the software doesn't say where one can be purchased.

Mike

[mccarrot]

PM send....

....

[blowfly]

Hi Dave,

Where can you tap the SCAN30LSP to get the position feedback for scanfail detection? You mentioned there is a lead for this a few posts back.

Thanks,
Mike

[dave]

Hey Mike,

Check your PM's regarding position tap off.

Dave

[greenalien]

I finally managed to find the time to finish installing the safety board in my projector, and have succesfully calibrated it, using the USB link and PC software, with test image 3. As it took some time to get the adjustment of the 4 pots correct, it would be good if the PC software test mode had the option to run for more than 60 seconds continually - 5 minutes would be better, especially as there is an option to cancel it at any time.
I then set up the 2 protected zones in the PC software (both the same, for now) to allow 50% coverage, i.e. the top half of the display area is not protected, the bottom half has protection enabled. I made my own test frame with 4 static points, 2 above the 'horizon', 2 below. This works well in 60-second test mode - the 2 upper points are displayed while the 2 lower ones are blanked - but I have been unable to transmit the data permanently to the projector - I get various different cryptic error messages that appear to refer to the screen coordinates, and the message bar turns red.
So far, I've only tried it with DIP switches 4 and 5 ON.
Any suggestions?

[Doc]

I finally managed to find the time to finish installing the safety board in my projector, and have succesfully calibrated it, using the USB link and PC software, with test image 3. As it took some time to get the adjustment of the 4 pots correct, it would be good if the PC software test mode had the option to run for more than 60 seconds continually - 5 minutes would be better, especially as there is an option to cancel it at any time.
I then set up the 2 protected zones in the PC software (both the same, for now) to allow 50% coverage, i.e. the top half of the display area is not protected, the bottom half has protection enabled. I made my own test frame with 4 static points, 2 above the 'horizon', 2 below. This works well in 60-second test mode - the 2 upper points are displayed while the 2 lower ones are blanked - but I have been unable to transmit the data permanently to the projector - I get various different cryptic error messages that appear to refer to the screen coordinates, and the message bar turns red.
So far, I've only tried it with DIP switches 4 and 5 ON.
Any suggestions?

I was getting errors 90% of the time when using my desktop (XP Pro, SP3), but works every time from my laptop (also XP Pro SP3).

Computers are the Devil's work.

[mccarrot]

Try to first Upload from the scanfail, then change the zones and the send it back.

[greenalien]

Cheers McCarrot, that seems to have done the trick - still took a few goes, but I finally got the green bar!
My DIP switches are now DIP 1,2, 5 - on; dip3,4 - off.
If I try to display a frame with a single beam 'below the horizon' it's instantly cut off, whereas a frame with a single beam 'above the horizon' lets the beam through - and it still remembers the settings, even after switching the projector off and on again. Great!!!

One more query - what should be connected to JP3 pins 1 / 2 - it says 'blank input' but I'm unsure where this should come from - the manual doesn't give any details. I'm guessing that it could be ILDA pins 3 and 16, also called Intensity - or should it be Shutter pin 13 / ground, pin 25? Anyhow, it doesn't seem to be needed as the scanfail seems to be working without anything connected to it - or am I missing something?