[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 thoughts on “Another Home-built Laser Projector”
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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..
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.
Too bad the site redirects to yahoo.com.
I saw this years ago and wondered what all the fuzz was about with the other article.. This however is a very interesting build!
His main webpage seems to redirect to yahoo, but you can see his report here:
http://elm-chan.org/works/vlp/report_e.html
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
I want to play battlezone on it.
That’s Elm-Chan for you. Dude’s really skilled.
Incredible documentation on all of his projects.
He filed his nixie-clock-build under
“insignificant projects”…
The quality of his builds is fascinating.
This is the stuff. Really.
is this laser week or something?
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…
Can we see some with micromechanical optics now?
Now if only MAME supported this… Asteroids isn’t meant to be played on a raster display.
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).
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
Wow, great documentation!
Here is an example of what you can do in a interactive way using laser projectors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90actrzTY6w
greetings
m.
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!
impressed!
@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.
@Matthias
another interactive thing you can do with laser projectors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpA__15_nzY