gyro_gearloose Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Hi I'm in the middle of building my own moving mirror and I need a mirror for it. The mirror needs to be about 6" by 7", preferably oval in shape. I'm really looking for an off-the-shelf spare from another lamp, maybe a Goldenscan or Rosco iCue, as it will be cheaper than getting a mirror custom made. Does anyone know how big these mirrors are, and where I could get them from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokm Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Home built moving mirror eh.. Erm, try AC Lighting, they stock spare mirrors for Clay Paky's range of scanners. The replacements for the miniscan HPE's sound about the right size for what your looking for. HTH. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted February 11, 2007 Author Share Posted February 11, 2007 Thanks Tom, I'll get an email off to AC lighting. Yes, a home built moving mirror. I have too much spare time on my hands. :( When its all finished, I'll post some pics. I'm also going to release all the circuit diagrams, plans, etc so anyone else can build one as well. At the moment the projected cost per unit are 100-150 pounds in parts. Labor, of course, is free... Its built around a Parallax Propellor cpu. Details here. So far I've got a simple (i.e. no error checking) DMX receiver program working, and I've got most of the stepper motor code sorted as well. Hopefully I'll complete the protoype in a week or so. The circuit boards are modular. So far I've made the main cpu board, two power supplies (48vdc to 5vdc to power the motors, and 48vdc to 5vdc and 3.3vdc for the logic), and a motor driver board. I've still got to make a board for the opto switches. The reason its all modular is so that I can easily add extra functionality. For example, I could add another motor driver and some motors to drive an iris, scroller, or colour wheel. All I'd need to do to the code is add another motor driver process. Since the Propellor has 8 32-bit cpus I doubt I'll run out of processing power! Another reason that its all modular is that I could use a cpu and power module to create a DMX monitor. If you look at the schematic for the demo board on the website above you'll see that by just adding some resistors it is possible for the Propellor to drive a television or a vga monitor. Really, the possibilities are endless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 You are insane, and long may you continue ;) Looking forward to the pictures. You may wish to consider a Cyberlight mirror, as it (as is the Cyberlight) is quite large as wagglies go. It is oval, but I don't think it's quite seven inches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokm Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Yes, a home built moving mirror. I have too much pare time on my handsPare? You mean your doing one of these >> Google - Define: Pare ;) Back on topic, would be interested in seeing pictures too. What sort of features you going to be attempting to pack into this fixture for a the apparent £150 price tag? Lamp power? DMX controllable? Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noiseboymart Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 From past experience golden scan mirrors are about 8 quid the last time I bought one.They are really light as well so no heavy duty stepper motors needed.LaterMart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meduza Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 eBay Link #1 eBay Link #2eBay Link #3eBay Link #4 Really think that you should use a first surface mirror, otherwise you get a double reflection, one in the glass surface and one in the reflective back, at slightly different angles... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted February 12, 2007 Author Share Posted February 12, 2007 You are quite right about the double reflections, however its not likely to be a problem in this instance. If I were to use my mirror with a video or slide projector then it may be an issue, but for a simple profile with or without a gobo it won't be. And besides, first-surface mirrors don't like being handled all that much. Their surface will degrade fairly quickly compared to a conventional mirror. As for what features I'll be able to include, I've just realised that I haven't told you about an important part of my design. The moving mirror will be just that. A moving mirror that gets attached to the front of any small profile (Source 4, Selecon Pacific, hell, even a Strand Prelude!). A bit like a Rosco iCue. Thats why it won't cost much in parts. ;) And yes, it will be DMX controllable. It will be run off a scroller power/DMX distro system, thats why its designed to run off 48 volts dc. Other plans include adding a simple pattern generator (circles, figure of eights, etc) which will have a couple of user-definable parameters such as size, speed, and position. Oh, completely off topic for a second. I've just spell-checked this post (and actually re-read it as well, unlike the last one...) and the spell-checker does not like the word gobo. Bit strange for a backstage/theatre technical forum... Moderation: The spellchecker currently just uses the default dictionary, although we're hoping to add a custom dictionary at some point in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted February 12, 2007 Author Share Posted February 12, 2007 Just to whet your appetites a bit, heres a photo of the circuit boards I've made so far : http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t41/gyro_gearloose/Circuits.jpg Starting at the top left we have the 5vdc motor power supply. Under that is the logic power supply (3.3 and 5 vdc). The big board in the middle is the cpu/DMX board. Finally there is the motor drive board capable of driving two motors. The circuit diagram in the background is for one of the power supplies. All of the circuit designs were done with good old fashioned pencil and paper. Who needs CAD? ;) There's a prize if anyone can spot the deliberate mistake with all of the circuit boards... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 There's a prize if anyone can spot the deliberate mistake with all of the circuit boards... You've not allowed for a means of mounting them????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted February 12, 2007 Author Share Posted February 12, 2007 Well spotted! No, there is no easy way of mounting the damn things. I got a bit carried away making the boards as small as possible and forgot to leave enough space to put mounting screws ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightsource Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 Well spotted! No, there is no easy way of mounting the damn things. I got a bit carried away making the boards as small as possible and forgot to leave enough space to put mounting screws :) Naaaaah, been in tighter situations than this one ( don't you just love veroboard :) ), Due to the way you have appeared to wire it, and the length of the wires, mount the 2 boards to the left on top of the central board, and the one to the right upside down ( solder side to solder side). Don't use bolts, use long pth pins, which only take up one hole, plus a couple to isolate the pin by removing the copper track. If really required, look at edge based pcb mounts / spacers, commonly found in the computer industry. Interesting project :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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