Another home-built laser projector

posted Aug 22nd 2010 10:07am by
filed under: laser hacks

[Jarrod] sent us a link to this home-built laser projector after seeing a different projector that we featured yesterday. This system is fundamentally different. [ChaN], who finished the project several years ago, didn’t use a loudspeaker to move the mirrors, but instead build his own closed-loop Galvanometers. Two of these are controlled by an ATmega64 to produce incredibly clean and accurate vector images. It’s not just the images that are impressive, his hardware is laid-out with skill and forethought that make hiding it in a case a sacrilege.



21 Responses to Another home-built laser projector

  • zeropointmodule says:
    August 22, 2010 at 10:49 am

    just the thing for projecting targeted ads onto convenient walls…

    bonus if it autodetects via bluetooth the type of phone they are carrying and then displays accessories and applications for it..

    Reply Report comment
  • Mich says:
    August 22, 2010 at 10:54 am

    That thing is really well made. Have a look at the video at the end of his page, it’s rather amazing for a self-built project.

    Reply Report comment
  • davisr says:
    August 22, 2010 at 11:16 am

    Too bad the site redirects to yahoo.com.

    Reply Report comment
  • Banjohat says:
    August 22, 2010 at 11:35 am

    I saw this years ago and wondered what all the fuzz was about with the other article.. This however is a very interesting build!

    Reply Report comment
  • cinead says:
    August 22, 2010 at 11:44 am

    His main webpage seems to redirect to yahoo, but you can see his report here:
    http://elm-chan.org/works/vlp/report_e.html

    Reply Report comment
  • Drake says:
    August 22, 2010 at 11:49 am

    I think the url you want is this

    http://elm-chan.org/works/vlp/report_e.html

    planning on making my own this upcoming semister

    Reply Report comment
  • macona says:
    August 22, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    I want to play battlezone on it.

    Reply Report comment
  • DanAdamKOF says:
    August 22, 2010 at 12:48 pm

    That’s Elm-Chan for you. Dude’s really skilled.

    Reply Report comment
  • MS3FGX says:
    August 22, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    Incredible documentation on all of his projects.

    Reply Report comment
  • Ulrich says:
    August 22, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    He filed his nixie-clock-build under
    “insignificant projects”…

    The quality of his builds is fascinating.
    This is the stuff. Really.

    Reply Report comment
  • fermicirrus says:
    August 22, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    is this laser week or something?

    Reply Report comment
  • limpkin says:
    August 22, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    man this project is soooo old, i remember having a look at it 4 years ago…
    you can buy ready to work kits on ebay, all you have to do is use an uC with a DAC…

    Reply Report comment
  • fluidic says:
    August 22, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    Can we see some with micromechanical optics now?

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  • Brian Recchia says:
    August 22, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    Now if only MAME supported this… Asteroids isn’t meant to be played on a raster display.

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  • Peter says:
    August 22, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    I saw this build years ago. Perhaps because its dated Oct 2004 :)

    If your interested in scanning my suggestion is get a cheap closed loop set off ebay. PS and all. Unless you have a scope and alot of time these are quite tricky to get right. And by that I mean scanning with nice sharp corners, etc. Kudos to this guy but for all the hassle, etc i’d just buy a set off ebay. Checkout General Scanning (G120′s) and Cambridge (6000 series) as they are the two big galvanometer manufacturers (or they were 10 years ago).

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  • Peter says:
    August 22, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    After reading this and googling around to see whats happening in the laser community these days I found the following link to several galvo project pages that would be of interest to anyone looking at this project:

    http://www.ctrnd.com/NormLaserShow/FriendGalvos.htm

    Also some funky software and a good DA converter here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUD0ibwQp24

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  • Matthias says:
    August 23, 2010 at 3:49 am

    Wow, great documentation!
    Here is an example of what you can do in a interactive way using laser projectors:

    greetings
    m.

    Reply Report comment
  • Hungry_Myst says:
    August 23, 2010 at 3:59 am

    It would be amazing if he wrote a program to use this as a display for old vector arcade games. Laser Asteroids for the win!

    Reply Report comment
  • Tachikoma says:
    August 23, 2010 at 5:08 am

    impressed!

    Reply Report comment
  • nes says:
    August 23, 2010 at 5:36 am

    @Brian Recchia: There is a feature of DOS Mame which supports vector displays via the Zektor adapter. Might possibly be used with this so long as the frame rate is not too high. Games designed for the Vectrex would probably work ok.

    The performance is all the more impressive given he went for a moving iron design over a moving coil. I like that this decision was well reasoned too, and the homebrewed capacitative positional feedback is awesome.

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  • axodus says:
    August 25, 2010 at 7:06 pm

    @Matthias
    another interactive thing you can do with laser projectors:

    Reply Report comment

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