Low power on red (RGB)

[Doc]

Its too late for me, I just had a stroke waiting.

Control yourself, this isn't the kind of website for that behavior.

Well, not unless you've got some 25W whitelight porn

[mixedgas]

Quoting Real Genius, 'Didn't anybody ever tell you to make sure your optics were clean?"

Steve

[Pitts]

Hey guys thanks for playing along......

Well, as far as the the green and the blue are concerned they read above spec so I guess I am not complaining too much.

BUT the red.... well down. Why ?

As explained after much soul searching and unfairly swearing under my breath at Kvant I started to look for issues.
Could it be the meter maybe ? basic unit but never had any misreadings before .... nope it seems OK in so far as one can check.

I noticed, like me, most of you went for laser / optics issues ... mindset stuff..

Well so we can all return to a normal life here is the cause...

I just happened to be down at eye height, laser off by the way) and I looked at my thermal head.. there staring back at me was the cutest finest made whisper thin spider web laying out across the "tube" at about 45 degrees.
..... Out with the cotton bud and voila !! power back.

I can only presume that the red was so affected because at 640nm its a "loose association" of beams rather than the thin beam of the green and blue.. you optics specialists may have figures on whisper thin spiderweb attenuation curves / wavelength to hand no doubt...

So if you put your meter away make sure no tiny spider takes up residence and considers the Head hole as a nice home...

Bit different to our usual faults we see huh ??

Thought I'd pass it on you may want to look up the hole first..


Cheers all

Ray
NZ

[FourDee]

Nice
Debugging your power meter

[hobbybob]

If the spider was still in, he was fried or at least blinded.
In good american fashion, do we have to call in some environmental group for the protected species to sue you ? Or do all power meters come soon with a big red and white warning label stating that NO spiders are allowed to make up their home inside a powermeters head ?

[ElektroFreak]

Thought I'd pass it on you may want to look up the hole first..

^Fine advice many places in life... not so fine in others.

Thanks for this info Pitts! A spiderweb wouldn't have been my first guess.

[buffo]

In good american fashion, do we have to call in some environmental group for the protected species to sue you ?

You do realize that Ray lives in New Zealand, right? Why bring America into this?

Adam

[Pitts]

^Fine advice many places in life... not so fine in others.

I just knew someone was going to go there when I typed it.......

Re Adams comment that I live in NZ... lucky I don't live in Australia they have some real nasty spiders
one of which is the Funnel web... big boy ... laser reading = zero if he setup home..

By the way.. the owner had left the house so I did not cause any undue harm or cruelty to our arichnid friend. ...

Unusual "fault" eh ??

Cheers
guys

Ray
NZ

[Pitts]

Just realised I didn't reply to Mr Willing's question..

I have a question about your color balance. I have a 532 doing about 600mW, a 473 on the way that should do about 200-300mW, and reds of 642 @ 300mW and 658 @ 300mW. Very close to your except my red isn't near as bright. Do you have to scale that green way down to get a decent white? I'm just curious how hard it is blend a setup of that kind.

My setup has the 1.2watt red. the 600mw green, 260mw Blue 473 and a 445 500mw blue.
This is "mixed" using a Semrock dichro that cost enough to buy a time expired Space Shuttle.
What I have noticed is..
The 445 is the "magic" when making white for me in my setup. The 473 looks good but juggling other colours is required to get a white. The 445 just breaths life into the white.
Interestingly the 445 as a blue lacks "punch" visually, although a very pleasing colour.

I can also tell you that if you ever use 640 Red which is great in colour and power be prepared for some maintenance work on the red if using mutiple diodes (more than two)... I have eight diodes in my red. It is the "mechanics" of keeping the beams aligned. My unit is well made (Kvant) but none the less over time the dots very slowly move, probably due temperature changes. I then have to very very carefully re align them with this tiny allen key... nerve racking stuff.

The other advantage of this system is if you run the 473 and the 445 you get a nice deep blue, like most blues it doesnt knock your socks off in terms of power BUT if you then mix in some of the surplus green man do you get a "powerful" lighter blue.
This is best demonstrated by using some manually operated potentiometers to feed DC to the modulation pins 0-5V.

In terms of your colour mix queries you may be better to search here under Tocket, he has written some very good articles on colour mix for us and there is a chart of his showing powers and colour mixes here in PL. Just go to search I am sure you will find it.

Cheers

Ray

[MisterWilling]

OIC. I didn't know anything about the 445 that was in there. Now your balance makes sense.

I have been using tockets program to check color balances. Great Program.

I'm not going to be getting that much 445 anytime soon. I all ready got a quote on that Kvant unit from Dave. My wallet exploded when I heard the amount. Not a bad price actually, but the projector I'm building is just for fun so that much money isn't justifiable yet. Plus the cost of that dichro

Looks like I'm going to have to go blu-ray for now. I just need to find a decent dichro. I have one from laserwave but the only problem is that its the last dichro and all other colors pass through it. Its pretty lossy so I would lose around 10% of all my other lasers in addition the the losses I'm all ready getting. I need to find something that will transmit better. Any suggestions at a price range of $50-$130?
EDIT:I just went through semrocks sight and saw they have one for $200. That's probably going to be my best option. I just have to justify it to myself now.