
Mechanical Laser Show (2017) [video] - hammerbrostime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dtBUiaAqRE&feature=youtu.be
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21
At the other end of the complexity scale:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2bf8L7G6WE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2bf8L7G6WE)

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ben174
Mind blown. Any idea where I can see something like this in person?

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slackpad
Recently came across this DIY laser projector vid -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xszp5UQLB2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xszp5UQLB2g).
It's all mirrors and motors in there with some manual controls.

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debt
This is so damn cool my question is, why is this type of shit so damn rare?

Like why don’t we see more instances of cool, low cost, big value hackery? Is
it just too creatively difficult to summon these types of ideas idk

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bitwise-evan
Thank you so much for the kind words. I am the creator and love these kinds of
projects. Check out another project I created along the same lines:
TheArtBot.com

If you are asking why not many people do these types of projects- you sounds
like an excellent candidate to do one yourself! I have list of project ideas
on my phone that I will add to at random times. Next time you think of a cool
idea write it down and make it a reality!

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eigenvalue
Great explanation of the math, made it very easy to follow. And the joke at
the end was a nice touch, I was totally waiting to hear about his SAAS
startup...

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JKCalhoun
Wow, that is clever.

I love when the parts have been around for a decade or so and then
suddenly....

I tell my daughters, "Nothing new under the sun," all the time.

I could be wrong from time to time.

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kevhito
You should say something else. There is lots left to discover and invent.

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iaw
That is beautiful work.

It may even be possible to set it up so that the movement has a more constant
velocity along the path.

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gene-h
Well if you want the laser to produce better images then one needs to use the
dark art of cam design. As it turns out, simply determining cam geometry
necessary to go through all those points is not enough, one must also take
into account the velocity, acceleration, and even jerk profiles(the derivative
of acceleration). If one does not take these into account the follower being
driven can't spring back fast enough and the follower does not follow the
intended profile. Most automobile cams must be produced to very high
tolerances in order to achieve low vibration. The fact that CNC machine tools
move in discretized distances can cause problems in some cases.

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bitwise-evan
Yes- just like you are saying, the intention with the Mechancial Laser Show
was not to maintain a constant laser speed, but accelerate and decelerate the
laser gently. You can see the mechanism by which that is done by pausing the
video at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dtBUiaAqRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dtBUiaAqRE)

Since the time taken to travel to each next point is constant, closer points
together mean slower speed and spread out points mean high speed. You can see
that the laser will slow down for taking the corners and speed up for the
straights. There was no math behind this- I just eyeballed it but you could
write software/math to help you determine the perfect spacing/acceleration.

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bitwise-evan
Hi. This is Evan, the creator of Mechanical Laser Show. I am planning to
present it at the upcoming Maker Faire in SF for a day so feel free to come by
and check it out.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here.

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akavel
See also a recent submission:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16273170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16273170)

I wonder what's the story behind it, is it real or fake, and is there an
original (non-gif) video.

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runlevel1
There is indeed:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgIZrSlPuko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgIZrSlPuko)

It was a show called LaserMan -- part of ElecTRONica, a nighttime event at
Disney California Adventure promoting the release of TRON: LEGACY.

Creator's site: [http://www.theodari.com](http://www.theodari.com)

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aphextron
Aren't all laser light shows technically "mechanical"? As far as I know solid
state optical beam steering is not a thing yet.

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cr0sh
If you google "non-mechanical laser beam steering" you can find some
interesting work being researched (I don't think anything is commercially
available, though).

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ASalazarMX
> An alternative to an acoustic-optic modulator is the electroptic deflector.
> There are a few types but the readily available type uses a quadrupole
> electric field on a lithium niobate crystal. This generates a linear
> refractive index gradient in one plane that can be adjusted on a ultra fast
> time scale. This gives the ability to change the deflection angle of a
> suitably polarised beam propagating down the quadrupole axis. With fast
> pulse generators the deflection speed can be good enough to achieve
> deflection by several diffraction angles in perhaps 10 ps.

This sounds like something Geordi LaForge would say.

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aphextron
>This sounds like something Geordi LaForge would say.

Precisely why optics is the coolest shit ever

