Fibre optics

[aijii]

We are toying with the idea of fibre feeding our new argon projector.

We want to run both the 0th order and 1st order beams from our PCAOM into seperate fibres...

We have a recombiner for the 0th order beam.....

We have a few questions for anyone who may know:

1. Suggested supplier for complete fibre systems including launchers etc
2. What size fibre would we need, single mode, multimode, etc ?
3. What sort of attenuation would we expect, say per foot or metre ?
4. What beam size & divergence would we expect to get out of the other end...

We would be using this with max 3.5 watts...

[chad]

This is the stuff I used to use. It is easy to align, stable and has a awesome out put beam.

http://www.laseranimation.com/products/pdf/lwl_e.pdf

chad

[cruch]

Wow! That is an god idea.
But will you get lower power when doing this?
Will you get 100mw output from a 100mw laser?

[chad]

No you will loose some. With careful input alignment you will probably get 80 mw or so.

Fiber doesn't make much sense with dpss because they are already small and lite. If you have a big heavy water cooled multi watt ion laser the time and conveyance of a fiber really is apparent.

Usually you want the projector above people and lifting and rigging scaffolding to hold a heavy (and fragile) laser and projector head more than offsets the power loss through the fiber.

Most of the loss is on the input coupler. You will loose a little through the fiber itself depending on length. The beam out the other end looks really nice, in fact the first time i saw it i couldn't believe the laser was being squeezed down to 50 micron and coming out 30 meters away looking that good. I don't remember the specs on the stuff it has been too long.

Chad

[dave]

Too right!!

Scaff is a pain in the ass. The fiber route seems very appealing, perhaps fitting a scan head with fiber feed into a moving head lighting fixture would be nice

[Coo-mo-d]

At one point I was contemplating the same idea. For many shows it seems more conveinant to run a fiber which would cut down the work load and amount of equipment (no heavy long power runs and less shorter water lines to run. Plus everythings out of sight and your projector can be cranked higher.

The downside is 90% output (real world 80-85% on a good day), HUGE divergence (much like the higher power DPSS >1W) and you loose beam quality and diameter so its only good for sending straight into a scan head.

I have used medialas's fibers and heard they are one of the best but $$$$. NML used to have a $600US fiber system. Most companys use fibersystems as a last resort or for additional heads and effects along with their main table. One laserist said to me that using a fiber takes the beauty away from the beam an ion laser creates, now its more just like a big focused flashlight.

Heres an idea I though was neat



Found it somewhere on a website, lookes like a SP164,165 or 168. I'd trust the stands I don't trust the people that arn't supposed to be back there but always seem to be, accident waiting to happen. But even that doesn't have to be that high for us non americans 8-10 feet and key clamp scalfolding with steel pipe works great.

Dave, Thats exactly what I would do if I descide to go fiber. Check out this guy he does all kinds of neat stuff but about 3/4 down is his Martin Mac-250 conversion.
http://www.showlaser.dk/backstage/projects/

These galleries are also worth taking a look at to get some "inside scoop" of once professional projectors or to get ideas.
http://www.laser-events.dk/privat/

-Brian