Here's some beam shots from the dual module I'm building. Pat's combiner is a great piece of kit and I'm having a good time working on it.
I've got things cranked a little low for alignment right now. It's no fun to burn your hand while twiddling the set screws. Only about 300mA per diode. As DZ stated, there is some loss on the cubes. I'm getting about 340mW before the PBS cube and about 285mW after. Laserwave has recently updated their PBS cubes and I'm waiting for more data on them.
One problem I'm having (not related to Pat's work) is the aixiz lenses bounce all over the place if you bump the focus ring or just look at them cross eyed. Is there a PL recommended approach to locking those down? I'm thinking about using a couple of drops of hot glue.
[QUOTE=mixedgas;135591]
Originally Posted by
DZ
Well it's been fun setting up this dual beam combiner. Certainly learned plenty about them. One thing learned is that the particular pbs cube used has a rather high loss. Currently I'm loosing about 35mW per diode, when the diodes are running about 275mW. I was able to get 480mW out of the cube with a diode current of 560mA. I know that running the diode at this current is going to kill it rather quickly, however, when under modulation, I kinda wonder how long it might last. So I'm going to leave it set for this and see what happens.
Only on PL would someone complain about 7% loss. Just being sarcastic...
Remember the good ole days with ION dichros, before we had this nice newer vacuum tech? YOu'd be griping about 20-30% loss.
BEAMSHOTS??? Steve
suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.