Topic: Open Laser Show DAC (USB)

[cfavreau]

Hi everyone.

I am posting some specs and a link to a relatively new USB DAC on the block.   The Open Laser Show DAC (or OLSD for short).

It is based on a Arduino microcontroller shield format and sports some basic but very useful specifications:

    * Scan Rates: 1 kpps to 30 kpps
    * XY Resolution: 12 Bits
    * Color Resolution: 3 bits (for a total of 512 colors - 8 shades of gray)
    * Colors: Red, Green, Blue outputs
    * TTL Shutter Output
    * Built in test patterns accessible by button.

These are the specs for version 3.   Version 4 sports 32k colors (32 shades of gray) and a reduced IO count.   It is totally open source.   Here is a link the main web page:

http://www.fab-favreau.com/index.php/Main/OpenLaserShowDAC

Not only is it a USB DAC but it also can function as a standalone test device.  It features built in test frames (Quadrature, Laser Media, ILDA, and a few others) that can be displayed at different speeds and in greyscale or full color.  The board includes a button to switch the unit into test frame mode.   Since an Arduino can be run on batteries it can do this independently of a host computer.

No finished boards or kits are available at this time, however I do have some V3 bare boards if anyone is interested.   Price for the bare boards are $5 plus whatever shipping is.

--- Happy New Year! ---

[James]

You should write a wave player for it!

You would need to down-sample from 48K (probably) to 30K and bit reduce your channels, but then people would be able to play LaserBoy waves and ADAT captures.

James.