Moving Head Disco Light...

[TroelsM]

Hi.

By definition this should be in the Moving Image section as it projects image and moves it around..

Now I'm placing it here to avoid the bashing from hundreds of angry home-movie-freaks..

Over the last couple of years I've build this beast. It's sort of a moving head as the ones made by Martin, SGM and others but with an twist.

Here's a link to some pics: http://www.kofoedmejer.squarespace.com/ -> pictures of projects

Have a look and tell me what you think.

Regards TroelsM

[TroelsM]

Here's a shot with the bulb on:

[TroelsM]

And the beam:

[pinkmouse]

Excellent work Troels, that must have taken months, and cost a fortune! Though strictly speaking it's a moving mirror rather than a moving head, (AKA "Nodding Bucket" in the biz), but I'll let you off that!

What lamp are you using, and what size are the gobo slots? Are you going for HiRes DMX for Pan and tilt? How many control channels? Are the gobos rotatable/indexable?

BTW for our cousins across the water- a gobo is what you call a cookie!

[TroelsM]

You're wrong! It took years but it didn't cost me a thing! -OK that's also not entirely true.. I've paid for some ball-bearings and nuts and bolts, but that's about it. Almost all the materials are from scrap-yards and the cost is about 1-2$ pr Kg..

Whether it's a moving head or a scanner.. well maybe a moving scanner head? The whole aluminium-head rotates and the little mirror does the rest of the movement. German GLP did the same a one point, but for some reason they don't use that method any more (to the best of my knowledge)

The gobo's are 28mm standard Martin-size. They can rotate and are very easy to replace with others. Sadly the gobos can't be returned to en exact position because there's no feedback to tell the control-logic any thing about the gobo-orientation.

At the moment it's a dead lump of metal as I haven't made any of the control-circuits. I plan to make some electronics in the next year or so. Probably based on PIC or Atmel procs.

Thanks for your comments.

Regards TroelsM

Edit: The gobos are cut from 0.1mm cobber-plate with a sharp knife!

Second edit: I'm using a 150W/24V lamp. Would like to use 250W, but them I'll have to make a better thermal design.

[pinkmouse]

Well, you could always sort out some sort of optical sensor for gobo indexing, it doesn't need to be mechanical. HighEnd used to just have a little slot cut in the wheels.

[TroelsM]

You're absolutely right.

The feedback could be optical or magnetic, but I need to stop the mechanical development somewhere and I decided that this is it...

Maybe it will be added sometime in the future.

Regards TroelsM

[Enzo]

Across which water? Where is it that gobos are called cookies?

[TroelsM]

Beats me! I've never heard anything else but gobo. BTW. what does it stand for? I've read somewhere on the www that it was something like Ghost before Objective = Gobo

Regards TroelsM