Hello

[fluff]

hi Everybody. Great site, with some very useful info.

Just thought I'd introduce myself to you all.

I'm fairly new to this so my knowledge is limited to the stuff I sell.

I have lots of surplus bits and interesting gadgets if anyones intersted.

I noticed some of you discussing cctv mounts. I have several huge ones. I've also got closed loop galvos, diode modules, cctv cameras, pan/tilt mounts , neon transformers, lenses, fs mirrors, dmx laser cards, cases for lasers, stepper motors and drivers, LED's, and loads of moving heads and scanners.

I sell all this stuff so I can by bigger lasers. I promote a night in a club where we get to play every week with the toys !

My latest project is a 5 or 6 watt white , so I am on the lookout for BIG diodes, especially blue, preferably fibre coupled.

Any help advice gratefully accepted.

Based in the UK .

Look forward to getting to know you all.

[sbk]

Hi, welcome to the forum! I hope you will enjoy 8)

[yaddatrance]

Hi fluff, welcome aboard!

Heh, I see you're already deep in the addiction

5W diode RGB? Interesting! What are your ideas on building your whitelight?
I'm not completely visualizing how you're planning on combining fibre coupled
diodes... I'm sort of imagining dual pigtails like those high power 80W
SDL diodes, but short of that... I see a heck of a lot of recollimation optics

Ivan and I are building a cute 3W whitelight system, but we're really just going
the tried and true route of big gas tube w/ ArKr fill... I'm also working on a
low power RGB system for kicks, but I'm waiting for spec to get some
473nm DPSS diodes in

It's somewhat amusing, but for the 3W... We are actually took a tube from a
6W dual tube whitelight and had Dean reprocess it into a 3W whitelight!!! The
actual offboard equipment requirements for running dual tube make it
impractical for just horsing around and turning on whenever you feel like it... so
while it'll be lower power, it'll halve the support equipment you need, and more
importantly halve the power requirements... It's not easy finding 240V
3-phase at 80 amps (240V 3-phase @ 140 amps if you need to add chillers)

Just post your ideas, don't be shy about them... I get tons of terrible ideas every
day and brazenly go forward with them...

[fluff]

Hi Yadda

I am indeed addicted!

About my 5 W rgb. A plan !!! Thats what I need !

I haven't thought too deeply about the methodology of it all. I only decided to have a go a couple of days ago when the SDL 3 watt red came up on ebay. Its going to be based around that. I hope to get a SDL/LDI 820 to drive it, and I have a Newport F-M5-S-670-11 collimator for it. This should give me a very low divergence 3mm ish beam. I am looking at cooling options at the moment, but I understand you may know something about that ! I then need to find the other diodes and match them up to the redt . Depending on what I can get, will determine the combiner. If I can get all fibre coupled units , I will try to find a fibre coupler, although my laser fibre optic knowledge is zero at the moment.

I have a small collection of prism splitters/combiners and dichro plates, so I may also experiment with them. Other than that, I am completely open to ideas. I am in no rush with this one. I want it to be my flagship, so i want to get the best results I can afford !

I am also putting together four smaller units from 400mW to 1 Watt using modules I have around, and prism combiners.

I do have a source for blue diodes, but the quality is too intermittent at the moment. Beams are usually OK , but power is usually way under the specs. I can get diodes very very cheap, but you need to be prepared to get inside and sort them out. This is usully a bit of focussing. Biggest problem is the divergence. I don't think they have a long room to test the beam!! I can sell a basic unmodulated rgb unit ( seven colour ) for $ 3000 . This should have 1 * 60mW 532, 200mW 473 and 250mW 635. What I got in the last one was 120mW 532, 150mW 473 and 220mW 635. The red is very divergent. I am putting one of max's 150mW reds in it to see how it looks. . They have 24k scanners and dmx. But they could be stripped for bits and you would have your sought after blue.

Gas laser !! I remember seeing huge Heath Robinson setups a few years ago when the rave scene hit the UK. I was a pro sound engineer for many years, and used to cringe watching these mad guys hooking up 3 phase and hose pipes . Run away !!! I was asked to pull a big gas system out of a club about four years ago. We gave up cos it was too heavy( it was 60 feet up in the roof). It ended up in a skip when the " builders " removed it. It had a refridgeration room! Not for me , those big voltages .

As I said I am not an expert, so any and all suggestions will be eagerly read.

If you need any cheap bits for your projects let me know .

Bye

PS I have a Spiricon LBA 200 analyser that i want to get going. I have no camera or manual. Any info gratefully recieved from anyone

[fluff]

Thanks sbk.

Glad to hear from you.

[yaddatrance]

So I did some research on how you could perform some beam combining...
it seems that collimating and then beam combining will still be the easiest
way... the fibre coupled optics I saw ended up being single-mode fibre...

[fluff]

Thanks Yadda.

I was coming to the same conclusion.

Should make it easier to find the other diodes. Blue of that power is going to be a problem. I also need a 2.5mm - 3.5mm beam width to match the red., and as close as I can get the divergence matching.

Now the question is prism or plates. I have a few of each so I guess I can experiment :P

I'm not sure about the power handling tho. We''ll have to see !!

I had one of my smaller rgb's ( 500mW ) fired up last night in a club . I like rgb a lot ! Gives me the enthusiasm I need for the 5 watter when I see the other one in action. I am fitting one of max's 150mW reds in it soon . If its ok, I will then get another for the same machine so I'll havea 150mW 473, 100mW 532 and 300mW 671. It should look cool.

Any Ideas on the tec system for the SDL red/

All you comments appreciated.

[yaddatrance]

Well tec control is pretty easy but if you're picking up an SDL-820
and driving the 3W SDL diode at 9A, you're talking about sinking
just 27-30W (9A x 3V = 27VA) of heat max...

I assume your diode is a P package? The simplest method is to find a
LDI-820-P heatsink, Last I priced them, they weren't too expensive
being just a block of aluminum and a peltier... The deep magic
is inside the SDL-820 which handles the reading of two thermsistors
and controlling the TEC.

http://www.laserdrive.com/pdf/LDI-801_Heatsink.pdf

[fluff]

Hi Yadda

It's a P5 , so it looks like a nice neat solution. Thanks, i didn't know about the specific heatsink. I was trying to figure out how to use the 820's tec controller etc. Now I know .

I am using adjustable stages for allignment, so If you ( or anyone else ) spots a suitable fibre mount I would be your best friend

Anyone know where I can get hold of a ccd camera for a Spiricon LBA-200 would also be my best friend. :roll:

Thanks for all your ideas :idea: