Hi! As I mentioned in my introduction post, my interest in lasers is for effects lighting in my band's stage show (at least for now). And I've come to conclusion that the Chauvet-type fixtures that are offered by the larger musician's supply houses just won't do what I'm looking for.
Right now, we have traditional pars for lighting the band, and several decent gobo scanners using high intesity lights with a variety of colors, to scan the audience with. I was looking to use laser(s) for overhead scanning, particularly for liquid sky effects, waves, splays of moving rays, etc. We have a couple foggers to get good dispersion, but the Scorpion Sky I bought for the purpose is not cutting it. Although it claims to have a 10 mW "fat beam" green laser, I can create a more impressive sky effect just by flicking my 5mW Radio Shack pointer back and forth with my wrist!
So I'm left with either modding the Scorpion or getting something else. I'm leaning toward the latter. BTW, I see all the DIY info on the site, and I'm tempted! I'm handy enough with a soldering pencil and working around electronics, but I'm afraid I won't have time for the learning curve and the actual build.
Anyway, I've seen that a few other members here have lasers incorporated into their music shows, and have done so with a budget of about $1,000? Perhaps I can get some tips.
I'm estimating that for the venues where we'll be using the full show (up to a couple/few hundred audience), a 30-50 mW laser should be adequate. Does that sound right? That seems to be a safe range in case the beam might ocassionally dip into the crowd, too. An RGB laser would be nice, but may be overkill.
On eBay, I've seen several offerings, including a 4-bank Lanling scanner (2X25mW green and 2X100mW red) and a Shinp 30 mW green scanner. There are also some other tems (2X30mW green and 2X80mW red). A lot of these are shipped directly from China. Does anyone have any input into any of these items, or the problems associated with shipping lasers from China? I know -- they're relatively cheap, but I'm still in experimental mode with the show.
On the other hand, if I could just replace the laser module in the Scorpion with a stronger module, I could be happy (for a while). Any thoughts on that? Still, the reds, and yelows, and blues are enticing . . .
I'm open to all suggestions and comments. And thanks for listening!
Right now, we have traditional pars for lighting the band, and several decent gobo scanners using high intesity lights with a variety of colors, to scan the audience with. I was looking to use laser(s) for overhead scanning, particularly for liquid sky effects, waves, splays of moving rays, etc. We have a couple foggers to get good dispersion, but the Scorpion Sky I bought for the purpose is not cutting it. Although it claims to have a 10 mW "fat beam" green laser, I can create a more impressive sky effect just by flicking my 5mW Radio Shack pointer back and forth with my wrist!
So I'm left with either modding the Scorpion or getting something else. I'm leaning toward the latter. BTW, I see all the DIY info on the site, and I'm tempted! I'm handy enough with a soldering pencil and working around electronics, but I'm afraid I won't have time for the learning curve and the actual build.
Anyway, I've seen that a few other members here have lasers incorporated into their music shows, and have done so with a budget of about $1,000? Perhaps I can get some tips.
I'm estimating that for the venues where we'll be using the full show (up to a couple/few hundred audience), a 30-50 mW laser should be adequate. Does that sound right? That seems to be a safe range in case the beam might ocassionally dip into the crowd, too. An RGB laser would be nice, but may be overkill.
On eBay, I've seen several offerings, including a 4-bank Lanling scanner (2X25mW green and 2X100mW red) and a Shinp 30 mW green scanner. There are also some other tems (2X30mW green and 2X80mW red). A lot of these are shipped directly from China. Does anyone have any input into any of these items, or the problems associated with shipping lasers from China? I know -- they're relatively cheap, but I'm still in experimental mode with the show.
On the other hand, if I could just replace the laser module in the Scorpion with a stronger module, I could be happy (for a while). Any thoughts on that? Still, the reds, and yelows, and blues are enticing . . .
I'm open to all suggestions and comments. And thanks for listening!
