RGB laser diode projector

Posted Jun 9th 2008 8:19AM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: laser hacks, daily

[fl-consult] published this interesting RGB laser diode projector. The build uses three lasers, 532nm green, 660nm red and a 405nm blue diode from an XBox 360 HD-DVD drive. Aside from the salvaged diodes, it uses some off the shelf hardware to power and scan the lasers to make the display. Details are a bit lacking, but google translate helps a bit. If you're not quite sure what's going on: the three lasers bounce off of a set of mirrors that scan from side to side as well as up and down to create images.

Reader Comments

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1. Add a smoke machine between the projector and the projection screen :)

Posted at 8:37AM on Jun 9th 2008 by gm

2. I can't wait to see this attached to a shark's head.

Posted at 9:18AM on Jun 9th 2008 by cossist

3. Its a shame this sort of rig is only useful for vector graphics. Would be nice if you could make an actual laser tv projector. Once you get past a certain point the scanlines are too wide for the image to make sense.
(Scanlines = the black gaps between horizontal lines in the image)
If there were more ReGIS animations out there it would be worth programming a mcu to parse ReGIS commands and render the "frame" out to the mirrors.

Posted at 10:29AM on Jun 9th 2008 by GrizzlyAdams

4. @GrizzlyAdams:
The lasers can be focused, just like any other type of light. In this manner, we can get a large or small "dot".

So then, it should simply be a matter of pulsing on and off with the rotation of the mirror to produce a rasterized image.

Posted at 11:17AM on Jun 9th 2008 by evillawngnome

5. Someone needs to write a MAME driver for this so he can play Asteroids on his wall. ;)

Posted at 1:25PM on Jun 9th 2008 by Orv

6. @grizzlyadams: I couldn't agree more. I suppose all you'd need is some faster mirrors, and some equally fast processor to tie them all together.

Posted at 2:21PM on Jun 9th 2008 by Pragma

7. GrizzlyAdams: I guess the problem is total power output. If you wanted a fully filled in image, you might want say 10W of visible light output - there aren't many lasers that can output that for a reasonable cost.

Posted at 5:42PM on Jun 9th 2008 by Hello1024

8. @#2 - ROFLMAO

I love the Austin Powers reference!

Posted at 10:04PM on Jun 9th 2008 by Greg

9. Well, for those who thought it could never be done to make a real projector:

http://www.colorvision-lasers.com/displays.aspx#

It can, but it's extremely expensive for cinema-style ones. The upshot, though, is that images are so much more colorful and vibrant.

Posted at 7:08AM on Jun 10th 2008 by Rager

10. This project looks a lot like the RGB laser I have been working on, except that it has a bit more power and is much larger. Kudos for getting the alignment on the first try!
http://krazerlasers.com/lasers/

As to doing image projection, it is entirely possible to project images using a rgb laser, either by using a set of DLP chips, a mems based scanning mirror, or even a rotating mirror and galvo assembly, but you run into problems that you need very fast bitrates into the lasers (30fps at 1024x768 is 23 millions pixels/second, DPSS lasers can't change their output that quickly, nor can many diodes), and an overall lack of power output. Most of these lasers only get well under 1W of overall power ouput, which is about as much as a single luxeon LED, not that impressive for a big display...

Give it time, there are already talks of getting some high power 570nm laser diodes to get multawatt lasers within the price range of a decent TV.

Posted at 2:31AM on Jun 11th 2008 by ...

11. @ orv/#5

Someone did do a vectormame port for a laser controller, LazerMAME, but the project has been dead for a long time. (The project made me a little sad - it couldn't handle the two Atari vector games I _wanted_ to play, Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back.)

Posted at 5:56PM on Jun 12th 2008 by Mycroft

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