If you’re interested in doing it for the experience of building galvos, I highly recommend Norm’s kit. It will help you go down the right path. Just google “Norm galvos” for the link. Steppers or a servo will likely create jittery output–I think you will likely need galvos whether they be home built or commercial.

The amplifiers were just always impossible to tune. I think I had some incorrect gains in the design that didn’t match the physical response of my galvos. The system just remained unstable.

How was the trouble with the amps? Were you pulling too many or too few? Do you have any ideas on what could have been causing it?

I use the CYL0285 magnet from the Super Magnet Man at Engineered Concepts, it is very strong. I have gotten both the capacitive and optical setups working. It seemed like they both behaved similarly; i was able to build the RF capacitive PD more accurately, so it worked a bit better, but if you’ve got a good physical construction for the optical, it might work a bit better, and you end up eliminating some of the electronics. Currently i’m just using a commercial system because I could never get my galvos working well enough to project anything worthwhile. My trouble was all in the amps, I’m afraid something was built just slightly incorrectly. Good luck, if you’re building a set I’d love to see them.