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Thread: Say Hello to my little friend!

  1. #11
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    Jan 2007
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    Florida
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    How are you aligning the 4 diodes into a single beam with (2) V-pol and (2) H-pol?

  2. #12
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    Milwaukee WI
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    Yep! You can see "V-pol" written on the base of the laser. The side that is closest to the camera is the H-pol side as you can see in the beam that is terminating on the V-pol side.

  3. #13
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    May 2007
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    Milwaukee WI
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    Also, I've been looking around for mills or those DIY CNC mills, I found a relatively nice mill from Harbor Freight for about $340 shipped. I may just have to go that route. I'll also need to find a better supplier of metal

    http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=47158

    These are also some pretty nice ones, just too expensive at the moment ~$700
    http://www.sherlinedirect.com/index....&category_ID=2

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Devon United Kingdom..
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    12

    Thumbs up

    Interesting project you have there

  5. #15
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Milwaukee WI
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    Hey thanks man, welcome to PhotonLexicon! (even though you joined ~6 months ago )

    Hopefully it will be nearing completion soon - right now the projects on hold.

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    Cleveland, Ohio
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    Nice idea, I hope all of those holes are at the same height! Do you plan on using a telescope to thin the final beam Ala Arctos?

  7. #17
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    May 2007
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    Milwaukee WI
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    No, if all the holes were the same height the horizontal polarized beams would overlap. So the horizontal holes have about a 2.5mm difference in height so they sit on top of each other. The v-pol beams are on the same plane, the mirrors will stagger those beams later.

    This one there wont be a telescope. The final beam will be about ~4.5mm Square, and its going through a 5mm diameter aperature, so that will cut out any corners and make the beam slightly round (also losing a few mw).

    Down the line I have plans for a much bigger beast. Plans will come soon... I just need to get all the materials/diodes before I start building. Also I really need a mill for this one... Once I get this one going there will be a telescope involved.

    -Max
    Last edited by mliptack; 01-02-2008 at 12:09. Reason: bad wording

  8. #18
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    Oct 2006
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    Cleveland, Ohio
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    Ah, sorry I had thought the pencil sketch showed horizontal layering, and not vertical layers.

    keep up the good work!

  9. #19
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    Milwaukee WI
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    Not a problem. I have a drawing I made (hand sketched) somewhere around here that has all the exact heights and measurements on it. I could post that if I find it. It was just coincidence that the pencil layer showed up in the image (its hardly visible by eye).

  10. #20
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    Milwaukee WI
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    Alright, so tonight was another of those nights for me, where the involvement and adrenaline to see the outcome of a project kept me up. It's now about 7am in Milwaukee and I will be going to bed - hopefully soon.

    I made a considerable leap in progress on my project in the last two days. Tuesday I received my diodes It was good to finally see them in my hands after waiting for a while to get them (new years delays). I pressed the diodes into the housings Wednesday night put them into an anti-static bag and realized how excited I was to get this project rolling for good. So I ended up doing some final machining and got the driver and the associated break-out for the 4 diodes mounted onto the case. With the frustration of my cordless drill's battery wearing out and the late hour (~4am) I decide to call it quits.

    This morning I put my insulating layer onto the metal diode housings to protect from shorting to the ground. I solder everything up, and put my molex connectors onto each of the 4 diodes for easy removal from the driver break-out.

    And somewhere in there aced another International Business exam

    I placed the laser modules into their respective spot in my old lasever case and I plug everything in...

    This is where I got a bit nervous... a small error in my design, faulty wiring, or some small shard of aluminum from the machining process and I could fry a lot of money away! I plug it in. No smoke. No fires. hmmm alright off to a good start

    I already have my DAC, laptop, and everything I needed up and running. Now I just needed to start dialing up the pots on the Die4drive. In a matter of no time I had a much brighter version of the images I posted earlier. Nothing spectacular so I didn't take any pictures of it.

    A few days ago I made my patent and trademark pending "ghetto mounts" which are simply a 1/4" X .062" strip of metal that I bent at different heights etc depending upon the razor mirror that I needed it for. Each tiny mount took me about 20-30 minutes to make and while they look clumsy and really wimpy, they are actually quite precise and sturdy!

    I then started to glue on my front surface mirrors all 5 of them placing them in the area first to get an idea of any special placing needed for the placement. Then the PBS cube, which was quite interesting to glue on as well.

    I contemplated using epoxy, however, while looking for some good epoxy I happened to find this new Locktite product that seemed fairly promising and in retrospect was forgiving and yet sturdy enough for my applications to be a much more suitable replacement for epoxy.

    At about 3am is when I took the plunge, I knew once I started gluing I wouldn't want to stop. I didn't. The first three mirrors we actually **Fairly** easy to align... I taped a 5mw laser onto the side of the case to give myself a good spot to aim for so that the beam came out at a right angle to the case. Once I got my first laser aligned, I was happy enough to let that glue set and move on. The first laser was the easiest. Building onto that first one is harder and I got what I call 'multiple spotlight syndrome.' I coined that term while working in the production industry, when a lighting designer calls more than one followspot to follow one person the two followspot operators can quickly become lost and think the spot that is on the person is theirs, when really their followspot is the one off of the person. Hope that made some sense. Regardless, I quickly realized that I had a hard time figuring out which beam was which so I found the reference laser that I wanted to use and put a small piece of paper in front of the others to block their output.

    I found out soon that the drilling I did was not precise enough and really eliminated the possibility of me using the fourth laser diode.

    The final outcome... Between the 3 diodes that are being using in the final beam (the fourth is still connected, just not being used) I get about 450-480mw of light output, this is pretty good considering the loss in the razor mirror approach, the optics, and the mirrors that I need to clean. The beam is pretty tight.... there are a few small gaps near the aperature, but at about 25 feet they become pretty insignificant (of course that sucks over a distance because they will become significant again.

    Of course this whole project was a bit of an undertaking for me and I treated it as more of a learning process. I did learn a lot of smaller things I would have overlooked in the design. I am glad I got this experience, and while it was a huge expenditure of my resources particularly my time it was very valuable to me.

    I do have a few pictures to post, however, they are on my camera right now. I will do my best to get those posted soon. I hope you guys enjoy this long post.

    -Max

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