I am starting the replacement of my Edmunds dichros with my dichros from Bridge. I will update this post as I progress so check this first post for updates.
My optics are all pretty dirty right now but I wanted to measure what I currently have. Here is what is currently exiting my galvo mirrors. The order of my lasers if Green Blue Red. This means green passes through 2 dichros. Blue bounces off one dichro and passes through one dichro. Red bounces off one dichro and does not pass through any other optics.
All - 140mw
Red - 100mw
Green - 18mw
Blue - 10mw
The white color balance is actually pretty decent with these power levels which is kind of interesting. The red to green ratio is about right but the blue is about 1/4 that of what is considered to be what you need to get white.
This is pretty pathetic considering that my lasers are rated at 180mw(R), 50mw(G), and 70mw(B). There are a heck of a lot of losses! Next step is to pop the top and start taking other measurements.
Now I have removed the galvos so I can measure directly after the dichros. The galvo mirrors kind of suck to say the least.
All - 237mw
Red - 171mw
Green - 30mw
Blue - 15mw
Next is to remove the red dichro to see how much power my red directly and see how much power is loss through it from the blue and green.
Things are getting interesting now! These readings tell me that my red laser only loses about 5mw bouncing off the red dichro. My blue power is really low and I am starting to wonder if it is still putting out the power it should be! There are hardly any green loses through the blue dichro. Max rating is supposed to me 50mw and it is 48mw. Hmmm.
All = N/A
Blue+Green = 63mw
Red = 176mw (this is directly from the laser module)
Green = 48mw
Blue = 22mw
Next I will remove the remain blue dichro so that all laser powers can be read:
Red - 176mw
Green - 52mw
Blue - 20mw
Based on all if the above here is the data for the Edmunds dichros:
Blue Dichro
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Green pass through: 52mw in, 48mw out = 92.3% efficient.
Blue reflect: 22mw in, 20mw out: ~100% efficient
Red Dichro
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Green pass through: 48mw in, 30mw out = 62.5% efficient.
Blue pass through: 20mw in, 15mw out = 5mw or 75% efficient.
Red reflect: 176mw in, 171mw out = 97% efficient.
So it seems like the dichros are very good mirrors but pass through is not as good. The blue dichro seems fine to me and within the advertised specs. The red dichro pass through is pathetic, though. I will attempt cleaning it to get better readings.
Next I installed the Laser wave Red reflect dichro. Here are the results so far:
Red Dichro
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Green pass through: 50mw in, 40mw out = 80% efficient.
Blue pass through: not mmeasured yet
Red reflect: 192mw in, 188mw out = 98% efficient.
So far, the LaserWave is slightly better at reflecting and quite better at pass through. Note, this is at 45 degrees. When I rotated the dichro to around 30 degrees the efficiency went up to 90%. Much better. I may decide to modify my laser positions to be at 30 degrees or at least as far as i can rotate them without bumping into other stuff.
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Side note:
Well, it appears that my Lasever 50mw laser is dieing. When I bought it I was getting 70mw out of it. Now it only puts out 20mw. I am not too surpised based on other people's reports about these Lasever blue modules. My good old Aixiz green laser is going strong and still rock solid at 52mw. It also has the best beam of them all. It is one of those "big dipper" lasers without a TEC. I am really happy with it. My red is still doing well, too. I made it from an Aixiz 200mw diode but I originally set it to 180mw. So, I have lost 4mw but that could be due to anything. I am very happy with it and may eventually combine two of them.
I am going to hold off on putting in my new dichros until I get my blue laser sorted out. Needless to say, I am not happy. I need to check if it is under warranty.
Red
Keep checking back for updates!