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Thread: Say Hello to my little friend!

  1. #1
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    Default Say Hello to my little friend!

    Scarface anyone?

    Ok, so I have been hinting at the new laser that I am building, but I never really started to talk about it because I wanted to have a design and everything to share before I proceeded.

    Well I still don't really have a design, but I have been up all night working on building my new anticipated to be ~700mW 650nm laser.

    My biggest dillemma to building my own laser is all the machining needed to get all the aluminum the way you want it etc. I do have access to basic tools, but this was a quick prototype... so I needed something that could be used in this situation.

    Thats when it came to me... my dead lasever module... so I removed the ML style module out of the larger style casing that I have. Now I have a nice aluminum case to mess with. For a while I toyed around with it trying to figure out how to build it since the baseplate would make it hard for me to align the beams through the aperature, without having to remove the cover every step I make. Plus it would be difficult to mount the diodes. So then I stepped away from the project for a moment SUCCESS - Just flip the damn thing over! Duh

    So now the baseplate is the cover.

    So right now I still don't have the diodes I need... well not all of them. So I put 5mW lasers in their place so you can all get the idea.

    The last pictures are taken with one of the 200mW 650nm diodes cranked up and used flash powder as smoke (my fog in a can is gone... I need a hazer!)
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails DSC05124.JPG  

    DSC05127.JPG  

    DSC05129.JPG  

    DSC05135.JPG  


  2. #2
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    In the second image (and some of the last one) you can see a bit of the layout pencil work I did on the *new* bottom of the laser.

    Soon I will start working on some cheap mounts.

    The holes I drilled were a huge pain with those heatsinks and the cheap drill press I have. :-/ Oh well it'll all work out

    EDIT: I forgot to mention, while shooting these pictures (Right after the flash powder was set off) I smelled burning paper or wood or something. So I thought maybe the flash powder was smoldering on something. But I couldn't find anything. Next I notice the corkboard that the laser is terminating on is smoking at about 2 meters. The last picture is a picture of the burnt corkboard.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails 700mw.jpg  

    DSC05141.JPG  


  3. #3
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    Wow! Very nice! I like the design a lot. I bet yadda would be happy to CNC a correct block for you if you asked nicely! Give him a bit of time and he'll get back to you!

    What diodes are those? Looks very nice!
    CLICKY!!!

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  4. #4
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    Thanks Ben! Sometimes its the lack of sleep that gets me going... At about 1 or 2 am I was thinking how I could do it, but should wait until I think it over more. By about 7am I started ripping out the guts and by 9am I was drilling.

    Great idea about asking Yadda, I'll have to send him a PM.

    As far as the diodes. The ones in there now are only 5mw Aixiz modules. The picture of the beam is one of the Aixiz 650nm 200mW CW diodes that I was trying to see if anyone was interested in a group buy of. I ended up biting the bullet and bought a few more at the $40 price, but if people are interested, I will still buy more

  5. #5
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    How good are the beam specs on the 200mW versions?
    CLICKY!!!

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  6. #6
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    I've only tested it at about 20feet or so, but at that distance it looked pretty damn good. Not maXYZ good...

    I am sending one of these diodes to Marconi on Wednesday. He said he will do some tests and hopefully get some better information out on these diodes. Unfortunately the diode I send to him I abused a bit already. I know they will hit 200mW but they heat up fast without proper heatsinking. The 12mmx30mm aixiz module doesn't provide enough heat dissipation.

    Hmmm in fact with my new multimeter I can find the exact operating temp... I will do that later.

    Just another update, I purchased a 40mm square and 50mm square TEC in hopes to offer enough cooling to the entire assembly.

    The only downside right now is this. The aixiz modules are on average about 11.80 mm in diameter (I did measurements on about 20 of them, but cant find that data right now). The drill bit I had was 12.45mm (~1/2inch). Of course this would cause a loose fit. I am also using robin's die4driver, which requires the diodes to be isolated from the power source ground. So in order to fix both issues I used 3/4" heat shrink and shrunk it over the diodes. This fits snug, little bit of a wobble unfortunately, however, I believe that would be inevitable with the thickness of the aluminum. But I doubt heat shrink is a good thermal conductor...

    Do you guys have any thoughts or suggestions?

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by mliptack View Post
    I doubt heat shrink is a good thermal conductor...

    Do you guys have any thoughts or suggestions?
    Potting the Aixiz diode housing into the ally with thermal epoxy would work ok - and hold everything rigid enough

  8. #8
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    good work, Max
    you had many many amazing idea,
    Best regards!
    Bridge

  9. #9
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    I made a couple of housings for those things. I had to use a boring bar to get a correctly sized hole. Also, i used a lathe to make the piece diode holder perfectly round from end to end. It isn't quite smooth where the two pieces screw together so it won't fit in a tight hole as it is bought.

    As far as insulation goes, I got a piece of sheet mica that is sandwiched between the main diode heat sink portion and a plate that I use for mounting. It doesn't protect against stray screw drivers and such, though.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by carmangary View Post
    I made a couple of housings for those things. I had to use a boring bar to get a correctly sized hole. Also, i used a lathe to make the piece diode holder perfectly round from end to end. It isn't quite smooth where the two pieces screw together so it won't fit in a tight hole as it is bought.

    As far as insulation goes, I got a piece of sheet mica that is sandwiched between the main diode heat sink portion and a plate that I use for mounting. It doesn't protect against stray screw drivers and such, though.
    Yeah the Aixiz diodes would be a lot better suited if they were uniform in size... they do have those smaller modules too, I bought a couple of them, maybe I will start doing some measurements


    As far as insulating the main block from the mounting plate, I was thinking of doing that as well, but like you said, it still has cause for concern. Something that I get too worried about. After all in that case you would blow all the diodes. In my case, maybe one or two of them.

    -Max

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