Simulated white.

[buffo]

Aw crap... I forgot about those pictures being 1280x1024...

Give me a little time and I'll re-size them on my host site. That ought to fix the problem. (Some forums auto-size pictures and some don't... I just didn't think about that.)

The "explosion" of beams was accomplished with a 2-D "grid" diffraction grating. You can buy them on E-bay for like $20 a piece, or you can just order some of the "laser glasses" that they sell on e-bay for like $1 each and just cut out one of the lenses!

Basically, it's a holographic film that splits the beam up into a grid of dots. It works great!

Edit: Ok - I knocked them down to 800x600. That ought to look much better!

[psytron]

hey u have been playing with dichros and they are much easier to setup than trichro's

[liteglow]

i personally think that the one and one lenses are more simple to use..
that is dichro ?

The trichro (sorry if I spell it wrong) is hard to use when you going to adjust 3 diggrent beams into ONE white

[buffo]

I don't know... Maybe I've just been really lucky, but I've always managed to get good alignment with my trichro after just a few minutes of fiddling. Note that in the pictures above (well, and my avitar pic too, for that matter) the only laser that is hard-mounted is the argon. (And by hard mounted, I mean it's in a solid head with a metal baseplate and the plate has adjustment screws for height and angle.)

But all three lasers are just sitting on a wood table. The DPSS pointer is resting in a hole drilled through a piece ov PVC pipe that is mounted vertically on a slab of wood. The hene laser is resting on two blocks of wood with half-moon cut-outs on the top for the round head to sit in.

I used old CD-r disks as "shims" to adjust the height of the lasers. (Sometimes I had to use strips of paper to adjust the height...) Note also that the pictures above were taken on different days, and the lasers were boxed up and put away in-between the the time that the two pictures were taken.

Given my sucess with the trichro, I can't imagine a dichro being any easier...

Adam

[psytron]

a roughly aligned beam (say u cant tell the difference at 4m) is pretty easy to get 10m is a BIT trickier

with dichros u make the beam hit the right spot in the dicro(reflected superimposed on transmitted).
Then change the angle of the dicro to align the spots on the wall.


do all this on a thick piece of aluminium and u wont have to do it again next
time u want to play laser games.

aligning with tricho's you have to control the spot on the trichro as well as the angle of the beam by moving your laser source.

I have tried both and dicro's are the easiest/neatest to work with.

[buffo]

Hmmmm... You have a good point there psytron! I never considered that with a dichro you can move the mount for the optic to adjust alignment rather than having to adjust the laser itself. I suppose that WOULD make it easier to align. (Of couse, now that means I need to buy a couple dichros and play around with them some! I've only got the two Fujinon trichos right now.)

Oh, and WELCOME to PhotonLexicon!

Adam

[psytron]

Thanks for the welcome


I am using a home made beam table (8mm Al with holes drilled and tapped
where I want em). all optics are mounted on mounts that are made from
4mm - 6mm Al angline with slits cut to fix optic mounts via screws.

setup is resonably stable (beam table could be a little thicker tho) plus i need
better ways to get rid of heat from dpss units

[buffo]

Sounds like a nice rig... Got pictures?

Adam

[psytron]

it is in pieces at the moment.

scanners are used in another projector.

Blue 100mw(473nm) is dead (i killed it ) - gonna see if i can diy
Perhaps its reincarnation will be more powerfull / perhaps not

the ht blue/green hr red dicro is in another projector also.