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Originally Posted by
Buffo
Bridge;
Have you been running a simple, full-power, always on test, or have you been varying the power some?
I think that a 100 hour full-power (continuous on) test is sufficient to tell whether or not the laser is stable enough. After that, I think a better "test to failure" would include a more real-world usage pattern.
Something like a varying blanking signal, say from 1Khz to 10Khz or so, with a varying duty cycle too. (Say, from a high of 90% on and 10% off, down to around 50-50 or so.) You could ramp the blanking speed up and down every 15-20 seconds or so, while changing the duty cycle over a period of a minute or two.
A test like that would simulate actual laser show use, which would be a lot more helpful. However, even so, you're looking at a 6-8 month test duration here. (And that's assuming just 5,000 hours MTBF; it could be a lot longer than that - potentially a year or more if you get up around the 10,000 hour MTBF mark!)
Then too, you'd probably want to set everything up on a UPS, so that minor power outages won't interrupt the test. (During a 6 month long test, a lot could happen!)
It's an interesting project, but I don't have the time to properly set up the test conditions right now. (At a minimum, I'd want to build a custom circuit to regulate the blanking as described above, then mount everything on an optical plate and secure it someplace where it won't be in the way for the next 6 months to a year...) Maybe after the first of the new year, but not now.
Still, I'm sure you'll get plenty of people that are willing to take you up on the challenge. Good luck!
Adam
PS: Gary - I hear you. It's not really a "fun" project once you think about it... I'm sure it will be fun for the first couple months, but after that it will be just tedious. The test could potentially drag on for a year or more, and you can't use the laser for anything else. Still, I'm sure someone will take up the torch.