How to confirm the presence of an IR filter

[m0f]

A wicked laser reference series 1W analog which was have some troubles was given to me to try to repair and make use of in a build. I believe I traced it down to the ld- connection on the driver, there is indication the wires got excessively hot, the terminal melted a where the wire inserts into it. Anyhow, tightened the connection down a fair bit and she now seems to be working as it should. Any idea what happened here ? Perhaps just a loose connection coupled with the relatively high current to the diode pump caused it to heat up ? Or is it potentially a sign of things to come ?

Now wicked lasers claims all of their models are IR filtered, however I want to confirm that 100% prior to using it for show use. Power meter's acting up, so I can't test the before and after an (additional ?) filter. The head has already been opened, as evidenced by some missing screws, would visually confirming it be a suitable option ? Definitely would prefer not to have to use an additional ir filter at ~10% loss of 532nm if there is one already in place.

My intention is to get a decent power meter in the fairly near future, just saving up a bit at the moment.

[polishedball]

Just film it see if the IR shows up on the camera.

A wicked laser reference series 1W analog which was have some troubles was given to me to try to repair and make use of in a build. I believe I traced it down to the ld- connection on the driver, there is indication the wires got excessively hot, the terminal melted a where the wire inserts into it. Anyhow, tightened the connection down a fair bit and she now seems to be working as it should. Any idea what happened here ? Perhaps just a loose connection coupled with the relatively high current to the diode pump caused it to heat up ? Or is it potentially a sign of things to come ?

Now wicked lasers claims all of their models are IR filtered, however I want to confirm that 100% prior to using it for show use. Power meter's acting up, so I can't test the before and after an (additional ?) filter. The head has already been opened, as evidenced by some missing screws, would visually confirming it be a suitable option ? Definitely would prefer not to have to use an additional ir filter at ~10% loss of 532nm if there is one already in place.

My intention is to get a decent power meter in the fairly near future, just saving up a bit at the moment.

[jenny]

using an IR sensitve plate may would help

[Ablaze]

Perhaps this would work for you.

It would filter out the green so you could see how bright of an IR spot was left over.

[stanwax]

An ir filter will appear as a light blue glass slip over the output but may be behind the last lens. Some makes have output optics that are coated to reflect the ir back into the laser hence keeping out of the resultant beam. The only way to test the beam is to try and split the ir and the green, which can be done with a prism or a mirror/dichro that passes either red or green. If you have a green reflect dichro for example, then reflecting off this will put most of the green down the direction the mirror is pointing. Some green will leak through - but placing a target (a piece of paper) in the way of the transmitted light and looking at it with a ccd camera, if you see a purple glow then theres some IR in there.
I wouldnt worry about ir in a beam as often very little will make it to the scanner output anyway. The ir will be quite divergent compared to the green so some of it will miss the mirrors, more and more the further away from the laser you get, plus many silver mirrors tail off at the longer end of the red spectrum so they will actually dump the IR through them into the mount and out of harms way.


Rob