What is the highest power all diode laser projector out there?

[planters]

It's an alternative to a carbon arc or, HID search light. And for that, it's pretty nice.

[masterpj]

I don't believe the video either.. it seems like a false claim to me too.

[frostypaw]

As someone who spent most of his working life playing with graphics that's totally fake. The 'beam' is just a stack of alpha blended 2d objects, you can see them separately as the jumps in brightness on the closeup then in the flyaround shot there's a moment where it goes edge on. The parallax jumped out at me too, stars twinkle through trees - could have made that a different layer and it'd be more convincing

[ghosttrain]

My thought is since they are not a fake company and provide real laser show services that they either made a video for a product that is still not finished, or the actual cannon they have built at the moment produces a weak shitty beam dwarfing next to a searchlight. I'm glad we agree its fake. I think we can move on.

But I'd still want the more knowledgeable members to explain to me why the decided that it's a good idea for a laser searchlight to have the beams just positioned next to each other as an array instead of knife edged. Is it because of the reason I assumed in my previous post or is there more to it?

[planters]

The two reasons that I believe that knife edging is used is to compress the side by side array of beams by minimizing the inter-beam spaces and as a method to align these beams with each other without having to move the more cumbersome diode mounting itself. If a large array of diodes can be machined as a single block and the alignment of the diodes can be achieved with the mechanical fabrication to a level similar to the divergence, then the side by side projection, without knife edging can be much more compact and less expensive.

Most of the blue diodes that are harvested from projectors are originally mounted in this side by side configuration without knife edging to illuminates the near field optics in projectors. Many of us have seen these blocks and some have even powered them up. It is a quick and dirty method of generating a big, bright beam, but is not compatible with the tight, low divergence requirements of laser projectors, primarily because the beams have to fit on the relatively tiny scanner mirrors.

[ghosttrain]

If a large array of diodes can be machined as a single block and the alignment of the diodes can be achieved with the mechanical fabrication to a level similar to the divergence, then the side by side projection, without knife edging can be much more compact and less expensive.

Im not sure I understand. What do you mean by a level similar to divergence?

Most of the blue diodes that are harvested from projectors are originally mounted in this side by side configuration without knife edging to illuminates the near field optics in projectors.

You mean raster video projectors? Those probably don't need the beams to be collimated though right? But in the video they are and it will take some distance befor5e the beams diverge enough to merge together. Is that a good idea given all the dust and other particles the individual beams will have to pass through before joining?

I understand this kind of setup has no use with laser scanners, I'm just curious if even for a static searchlight style beam it is a good idea to not knife edge them and just arrange them in an array with gaps measured in cm rather than mm.

[planters]

Im not sure I understand. What do you mean by a level similar to divergence?

If two beams are diverging from each other at the same rate as each beam is diverging itself then the co-alignment of the beams is at a similar level and better co-alignment will produce only a small improvement in the overall divergence.

I mean video projectors which were the first cost effective source of the powerful blue diodes. There beams were collimated, but not as well as was possible, because that was not necessary. Each diode had a collimating lens mounted in front.

it is a good idea to not knife edge them and just arrange them in an array with gaps measured in cm rather than mm.

As I said above, there are advantages and disadvantages to knife edging. It is not a given that it should not be done.

[ghosttrain]

If two beams are diverging from each other at the same rate as each beam is diverging itself then the co-alignment of the beams is at a similar level and better co-alignment will produce only a small improvement in the overall divergence.

Why are the beams diverging from each other? If they are parallel and the beams have divergence won't they converge?

[planters]

This is where you need to actually try to assemble some diodes into a projector or a module.

EVERYTHING is a bit off.

Even the diode flange in a never used diode has microscopic variations in its surface, so that when you insert it into a mount, the beam will point slightly off of the theoretical target. Now add clearances that allow the assembly of lenses and the module itself and you end up with a cluster of slightly misaligned beams. This misalignment usually exceeds the divergence of a collimated diode and there are usually a few, out of the total, that are way off and either need fiddling, or replacement. Knife edging gives you the ability to correct these variations.

[ghosttrain]

Oh, I completely misunderstood your point, I thought you were saying the opposite.
Good point. Can we also get back to my question in post 30? Even if the beams are perfectly parallel, doesn't more gap between them cause loss of brightness before the beams converge because during that time individual weaker beams hit particles in the air? I'm really curious because this was one of the points someone mentioned when I was learning about video projector stacking, the idea is more than one beam means more power loss before each reaches the surface.