KAM DMX Star Cluster 3D upgrade/modifications
I've had a lot of help on this photonlexicon forum from fellow members, and I'd thought I'd contribute something myself that might help other members. Posting this on here was a bit of an after thought, so sorry if the description/pictures are a bit hard to follow.
DISCLAIMER: This is for education purposes only, I dont recommend that anyone does any of this.
The red on my KAM DMX Star Cluster 3D had faded significantly from, new to perhaps 50% brightness, so I decided to beef it up with a LOC diode.
Here is what the fixture looks like inside (after removing the black cylindrical red diode module, which used to house the driver board, and putting it inline and cable tieing it to other cables.)
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/9100/openx.jpg
I opened it up, and took the red laser module out (the black bits in the next picture that arent made of silver or red aluminium/steel).
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/9767/bitsafter.jpg
The knurled black bit was easily pulled off the main housing. The main housing held the driver board. I took out the diode, and kind of replaced it with a flat headed nail. I put the knurled part in the vice, and using pliers pulled out the part that is attached to the nail in the picture above.
I couldnt figure out how to get out the brass insert(I'd have to do this to focus the new diode), fortunately, an aixiz module fits nicely into the knurled part. I pressed the new LOC diode into the aixiz module using paste, and then put the aixiz module into the knurled part using paste. Using pliers the bit of aixiz module sticking out can be twisted to focus the diode. The bits with with the nail attached, and the larger part of the aixiz module are now surplus.
The driver board was previously set to 150mA, so I guesstimate that when new, the raw output of the closed can red was probably about 75mW, although I reckon that it was about half this when I took it apart.
The driver board could be adjusted from 100mA-200mA. After reading up on data sheets for the components involved, I could see that they should be good for upto 700mA. I shorted this (roughly 6.7kohm) resistor using a bit of wire..
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/3564/boards.jpg
This left the (roughly 10kohm) potentiometer to set the current, which could be started at 200mA, and quickly went up to 400mA(I didnt go further than this, as I didnt want to find out what happenned if you turn the potentiometer all the way round!). I fitted the LOC, and set it to 350mA. The diode now outputs roughly 220mW. I reassembled it, and it now looks like this...
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3236/mounted.jpg
Compared with my laser scanners this diode will be a piece of cake to replace if/when it burns out again.
I thought that the green pattern was quite overpowering before, and that it didnt have enough 'stars', so before I put the case back, I glued on a few 2 500 lines/cm diffraction gratings at right angles...
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/3355/gratings.jpg
I put it all back together, and it looks a lot better. I'll post a little video clip of what it does when I get a chance.
