Making a DIY text laser projector

Re:Making a DIY text laser projector by sandworm101 on Thursday February 07, 2019 @12:31PM (#19106716)

Combining multiple beams into a single white beam is an answer, but is horribly inefficient. A better (ie brighter) approach is to scan with multiple beams, overlaying them as necessary to create various colors. It would be more complex (3x moving parts, more alignment) but the net result would be faster scanning and a greater percentage of laser time being used.

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Re:Making a DIY text laser projector by rolph on Thursday February 07, 2019 @04:08PM (#19108608)

if the 3 beams were miniaturized as in surface mount diodes:

these for example

http://www.excelitas.com/Pages/Product/Surface-Mount-Laser.a...

and were carried or fibre coupled in a single "gimble?" there would not be duplication of moving carriage parts. a "trinitron like" emitter gun would be possible. moving a mirror as done by the author would also reduce the mass that would move at high speed while scanning across a large display field, it would then be a matter of timing a laser pulse of desired color to the desired position of the mirror set. a look at CRT television/display circuitry would be very inspirational, only in this case the color is emitted rather than stimulated by flouresence of a phosphor target.

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Re:Making a DIY text laser projector by cr0sh on Thursday February 07, 2019 @04:46PM (#19108903)

Something to keep in mind is that mirror scanning for television is a very old technology, dating back to the beginnings of mechanically scanned TV:

http://dci-forum.com/back-roots-tv-history-beginning/24/mech...

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Re:Making a DIY text laser projector by Animats on Thursday February 07, 2019 @05:53PM (#19109483)

Yes. There's a long history of ideas in this space. DLP projectors, with a MEMS mirror for each pixel, are one of the few successful examples. Any system where you illuminate only one pixel at a time flickers horribly, which is why this sort of thing is used for laser light shows and not much else.

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Re:Making a DIY text laser projector by rolph on Thursday February 07, 2019 @06:01PM (#19109562)

- now if you can send the beam[s] through a tft display minus the backplate, and darken pixels you dont want to illuminate then scan the beam across the whole thing...This has a madmax or a maxheadroom sort of appeal to it.

i was trying to find the mems mirror around but couldnt , still looking for dead projectors to throw in the morgue of parts.

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Re:Making a DIY text laser projector by rolph on Thursday February 07, 2019 @05:56PM (#19109520)

I do have wide streak of steampunk, i love retrotech, espescially when using junkyard parts and a few mailorder bits together.

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