Dav of pointless creations asked me to build him 2 scanjectors for an installation/show at the GI festival by kim coleman and jenny hogarth, as he was rushed off his feet with a variety of other projects and sourcing everything else for the show. so based on some ideas from another scanjector project he found on the net, and armed with 2 chauvet intimidator 2.0′s and 2 np100 DLP projectors, i set about dismantling the scanners for the bastard marrying of the 2 units.

disco scanners are fairly simple units. a lamp shines through a colour wheel and a gobo wheel, and then through a small lens array and onto a mirror. the colours and gobos are selected via dmx signals, as are the x and y co-ordinates for the mirror, which beams the gobo around the room.

4 servos do all the work of selecting the colour, gobo and x/y co-ordinates, and other than the pcb and a large transformer, there isnt much else in these things.

:::DISCLAIMER:::

HARDWARE HACKING CAN BE DANGEROUS. I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR DAMAGE TO YOUR HEALTH OR YOUR MACHINES IF YOU ATTEMPT ANYTHING I OFFER BELOW.

I OFFER NO GUARENTEES THAT WHAT WORKS FOR ME AND MY MACHINES WILL WORK PERFECTLY FOR YOURS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

CAUTION: TAKE CARE HANDLING THE INSIDES OF THE SCANNER EVEN WHEN NOT CONNECTED TO THE MAINS POWER SUPPLY, THERE ARE HIGH AC VOLTAGES USED IN THESE MACHINES THAT COULD/WILL HURT YOU!

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR WELL BEING.

whilst this is meant as a how-to, its likely that its not going to be as simple to construct as all scanners and projectors will be different sizes, have different connections and mounting requirements. i find that the phrase “a picture says a thousands words” to be very accurate, so theres lots to look at below.

lets start wit the projector. the np100 is a dlp projector and offers 2000 lumen, and is one of the few projectors that can be mounted in any orientation without causing any issues for cooling (by all accounts).

the scanners used here were chauvet intimidators. nothing special but do their job well. its a 5 channel scanner with 14 gobos and 12 colour effects. stand alone operation through an inbuilt audio sensor or dmx operation.

so lets crack this thing open.

taking the front panel off the unit, you’ll find not much in there. from left to right, there is a large power transformer, the power/dmx connectors and the pcb that does all the work of converting dmx signals to control the servos for the gobo’s, colour and x/y co-ordinates for the mirror.

in the middle there is the lamp, mounted on top of a bracket with a fan underneath for cooling, and finally at the end we have the gobo/colour wheel and related servos, plus a few lenses for manual focusing.

outside of the enclosure we find the mirror and the 2 related servos.

if we remove what we don’t need, which is the gobo/colour wheel unit, the lamp and the spacer panel between the lamp and the transformer as follows:

Now is also a good time to give it all a little clean with a hoover and a quick wipe. at this point its also a good idea to drill any extra holes you’ll need for a new bracket to hang the scanjector from. dav provided an Avenger bracket for this purpose.

the gobo and colour wheel unit (which also houses the lenses) comes out in one piece which makes things easy, and the lamp/spacer panel are easy too, since everything is held in place with self tapping screws. we’ll need the spacer panel later, but the rest of it gets tossed into the spares bin for later, as those optics will come in handy for something i’m sure!

i’ve left the bracket that the lamp was attached too as this provides a solid surface to brace and attach the projector to.

remember that spacer panel? well we’ll modify that to help us secure the projector.

i used a sheet of perspex cut to size to make mounting the projector easier, and to give the whole unit some rigidity but first i had to measure the angle of the mounting position so we could modify the spacer panel as follows.

this is then screwed back into place on the bracket from where it came, obviously minus the lamp.

i had to remove a portion of the side of the scanner as the projector sticks out a lot once mounted in place. this was taken care of by use of a dremel and a couple of heavy duty cutting disks. i would strongly recommend getting some decent cutting disks for the dremel, or an angle grinder, but i find they can be a little difficult to control in delicate situations.

to make life easier, I would also suggest removing as many of the components as possible, which are all mounted with screws so its not a difficult task and saves you accidentally cutting through anything you don’t want to, or getting metal dust all over the pcb and creating shorts. alternatively just mask it all off and be very careful!

you could make the side cut out a nice sloped cut, but knowing how hot the projectors get, i went for a right angled cut which will also improve air flow, and allows for more convenient access later to mount the projector to the perspex.

the perspex was cut to size so that it would wedge between the sides of the scanner at their lowest point, and then drilled to allow secure mounting to the side panels of the scanner which was modified with holes to allow bolts to tighten everything up. i used a clear piece on this scanner so that you can see whats going on, but the other one was a similar piece but in solid white.

the perspex is held in place by 3 bolts. i lined up the perspex and clamped it in place before drilling through the perspex and the metal, then tapped the holes in the metal to ensure a nice tight fit. also a dod of glue will mean they never come loose on you!

the projector has 3 mounting holes in the bottom of it, so with it mounted in place and clamped so it didn’t move, we can mark where the holes need to be in the perspex and then drill it so the bolts can be slotted in from underneath the perspex and attach into the projectors mounting holes.

remember that big cut from the side panel of the scanner earlier? that’s where the access comes from, and from the front of the unit, to allow us to get our grubby little fingers in there to tighten it up. i tried marking it all out and drilling the holes before mounting the perspex to the scanner, but they were ever so slightly off the mark, and the projector didn’t sit right. this was fiddly, but in the long run more accurate.

with everything in place, it was time to give it a quick test to make sure everything was aligned properly, which it was, bonza! at this point i attached the hanging bracket as well.

we still have some exposed wires, PCB and the transformer, so next we need to cut the front plate down to fit back in place and to stop inquisitive fingers getting in there. the dremel/angle grinder comes back into play here, and its a good idea to clamp it in a vice to stop it from moving about while cutting.

i cut out a small section to allow easier access to the power socket for the projector, and as with the side panel cut, i de-burred the edges as they were damn sharp!!!

now we screw the front plate back into place and used a couple of cable ties around the projector for added security. these were feed through additional holes drilled into the scanners body. probably not needed, but better safe than sorry and to have a broken projector after it crashes to the floor from a great height should your mounting be a little poor!

all said and done, the unit works a treat. without the lamp, the only heat is from the projector, which has all air vents clear and the transformer produces no heat what so ever as the servos and pcb draw very little power compared to when the lamp was installed as well, so no issues with anything getting too hot and melting! the projector was mounted at an angle as it was too tight if laid flat, and the lens was too close to the mirror to work properly. so by angling it, extra distance from the mirror was obtained.

scanjector test from Vidiot Squad on Vimeo.

certainly not the best video in the world, but it at least gives you an idea of the effect, which is dmx controllable positioning of video content around a room.