Laser Lines are off

[jgoodwin27]

Hey,

I just recently got my quickshow up and running and have been enjoying it. I have been using it on one computer/setup and it has worked perfectly but I took home all my gear and tried setting it up at home and now the lines are not matching and are drawing very far off.

http://imgur.com/a/kRHGe

This isn't happening when I bring it back to the other computer, just the one at home. Haven't really played with any of the settings and I tried Uninstalling/Reinstalling. Any ideas what could be causing this?

 

[Aaron@Pangolin]

That is an odd phenomenon; are both these computers laptops or desktops? If they are different, I suspect some sort of grounding issue.

 

[johnfl68]

I am not familiar with QuickShow, but based on past experiences, it sounds like the "Home" computer has the default QuickShow projector/scanner settings, and your "Other" Computer has been properly optimized for your projector/scanner so that your output looks good on your projector/scanner.

I don't know if there is a way to export the projection settings from one computer and import to the other, or if you just need to look at what your scanner settings are on the computer that looks good, and change the scanner settings on your other computer to match.

Hopefully this will point you in the right direction.

John

 

[jgoodwin27]

That is an odd phenomenon; are both these computers laptops or desktops? If they are different, I suspect some sort of grounding issue.

They are both Desktop Computers. They are actually right next to each other but on different circuits. Let me play with some of the power lines and see if that is not the problem. Would you think it would be the power feeding the laser or the power feeding the computer itself?

I am not familiar with QuickShow, but based on past experiences, it sounds like the "Home" computer has the default QuickShow projector/scanner settings, and your "Other" Computer has been properly optimized for your projector/scanner so that your output looks good on your projector/scanner.

I don't know if there is a way to export the projection settings from one computer and import to the other, or if you just need to look at what your scanner settings are on the computer that looks good, and change the scanner settings on your other computer to match.

Hopefully this will point you in the right direction.

John

Both were configured by me the exact same way. Already played through all of them to try and figure out a way to manually fix it but couldn't figure it out.

 

[Aaron@Pangolin]

You confuse me when you say the computers are right next to each other but in the first post you state you took all your gear home.

A grounding issue could be anywhere, in the line going to the laser projector, in the projector, the line going to the computer, in the computer... There could be some minor ground loop in your computer that normally wouldn't cause any noticable indicator until you connected a device that draws light in a way that makes loop noise visible. Do the lines move at all or are they all "stationary". Most grounding issues will cause movement in the laser due to signal noise being caused by voltage fluctuations on the ground.

Can you post a few pictures of the same images from your first post being displayed where they look "perfect" to get a comparison?

 

[jgoodwin27]

You confuse me when you say the computers are right next to each other but in the first post you state you took all your gear home.

A grounding issue could be anywhere, in the line going to the laser projector, in the projector, the line going to the computer, in the computer... There could be some minor ground loop in your computer that normally wouldn't cause any noticable indicator until you connected a device that draws light in a way that makes loop noise visible. Do the lines move at all or are they all "stationary". Most grounding issues will cause movement in the laser due to signal noise being caused by voltage fluctuations on the ground.

Can you post a few pictures of the same images from your first post being displayed where they look "perfect" to get a comparison?

http://imgur.com/a/xwYSy

There is the picture of my set up, I used work/home since it would be easier for me to distiguish which computer you were talking about if you asked for something on a specific one.

Those are the patterns that I get on the other computer there, compaired to the ones in my original post you can see they are a lot more accurate - no matter what modifications I make to anything.

My computer is also hooked up into the sound system and there is a slight buzz that comes through the system which I know comes from a ground loop in the computer, have you seen ground loops cause these issues before? And do you know where a probably suspect within the computer would be that I could check and try to ground properly?

 

[Aaron@Pangolin]

Thank you for the clarification. I was thinking that is how you had it set up but didn't want to assume.

From my perspective this appears to an issue somewhere in your wiring. Have you tried to move your "home" computer over to the other desk, connect it to everything the "office" computer is using and test?

As for internally in the computer I would not know where to begin. It could be anything from the power supply to some poor design of the mother board or a lil piece of wire shorting something on your sound card. You could remove components one by one until you hear the hum go away (remove the sound card last) but that might not be the problem. Isolating this might be a long weekend of trial and error. It could just be that your laser projector is on the same AC circut as your office computer but not your home computer; by swaping control between the two you might be causing a ground loop. (or even a power strip issue could cause something similar)