Its been some time and a lot of issues have been solved and others discovered. Both the red and blue
modules are fully insulated and are running cold ( the red at -20C. and the blue at 0C.) with the TEC's at
11 V. I plan to increase the cooling to 15V., but will have to add some resistance to the window heaters
as they are quite warm and are on the same supply as the TEC's (mistake). Good advise from Danielbriggs
and the upper two secondary knife edge mirrors were moved forward to allow two separate 10mmx10mm 445nm
beams. One beam is passed through the 15mm dia. wave plate while the other is reflected to meet in the
PBS (which operates best at 40 degrees). My only significant disappointment has been the short pass
dichroic which despite testing filters from two sources reflects at least 15% even after adjusting to the
best incidence angle. Less of a problem are the cheep Chinese power supplies that droop with even small
loads and are being replaced; this limits the modulation voltage, for now, to 2.4V. before the P3's start
dropping out. Nevertheless, the brightness is amazing. With the Vashio at 1.5W it is easily balanced by
the red (646nm) running at slightly less than half power at 3.2W and is completely swamped by the 445's at
12 W. The original plan had been to lay everything out on the optical table then build a custom enclosure
and then move this projector into the main hall which in turn is about 7 meters above the lab. The new
plan is to leave the lasers where they are for the time being and pass the combined, but uncompressed
beam, through a beam tube to the floor above and there compress and scan the laser; hence the upper
breadboard on temporary legs shown above the table.
![]()