Received the second component of my future project

I’m already dazzled. :beer:

Nice. Looking forward to watching this build. No g-ball lens built into the can. 7 watt 450nm diode from a NUBM44/47 bank?

Thanks, yeah its a nubm44 :slight_smile:

I hope that mount has the right tolerances to press fit the diode, otherwise you get thermal issues

also a TEC cooling is needed to keep the diode cool if you want to drive it hard

I’ll heatsink the diode with thermal paste or liquid metal.
I’ll be making my own mount for the diode so I can probably do pressfit too.

With a large heatsink you can do 6-7W without a tec, see some of the videos on youtube.
A tec is more necessary for 8-10W which is pretty extreme.

I’m trying to keep the amount or parts minimized for highest reliability and lowest price, so that means no liquid cooling or fans or tecs.

Just tested the laser tonight, incredibly powerful, was at minimum power and it started burning a hole in some cardboard.

Unfortunately I seem to have some issue with my laser driver, so just using my DPS5020 power supply to drive the laser at constant voltage and it works great.

Planning to machine a custom copper heatsink for testing purposes, as I need to hold both the collimation lens and crystal at fixed distances.
My idea is to make a simple rectangle block that I can screw onto a CPU heatsink like the NH-D15 for some extreme cooling:

Then I can also make a second attachment for LED MCPCBs and I can easily switch my heatsink to whatever needs to be tested.

I also just purchased a special M9x0.5 thread tap (for the lens) to make the copper laser block.

Please take care of you

and the outside world!

Regards Xandre

It looks like you’re finally starting to get sumwatt more serious about this little project.

:laughing: :open_mouth:

M9 is an unusual size. Never heard of it before now. Good to see more components rolling in. Hopefully the driver can be sorted out.

:slight_smile: Yup, closed room, goggles, fire extinguisher at the ready.

M9x0.5 is odd but found on almost all security camera/fpv camera lenses and laser lenses, it seems to be the standard for those things that need fine adjustability of optics.

I want a good cooler that would be standard for all my testing, for better repeatability :slight_smile:
The NH D15 is basically the best cooler that won’t be a liquid cooler.

Yikes! This is scary :laughing:

those youtube videos does not tell you how many hours you got before the diode degrades rapidly
you overdrive the diode already and any commercial module for laser show
serious quality laser engraver has TEC cooling or does drive the diode at lower currents within specs

The 6W opt lasers engravers only have an aluminum heatsink and fan cooling it.
I’ve seen people get up to 8+ W by cooling the laser in the fridge.
I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere near that high, maybe 6-7W at most assuming the crystal doesn’t burn up at that power.
My cooling should be significantly better than what opt lasers has on their engravers anyway :slight_smile:

A little :stuck_out_tongue:
I’ve done a lot of research on lasers in the past but never owned a diode this powerful.
Safety first!

This cat’s observations about safety dated or not sure made an impression upon me. :open_mouth:

I think he’s not over-hysterical about laser safety across the board per se butt where he does gets serious I do believe he’s SERIOUS. :laughing:

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersaf.htm#saftoc

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserfaq.htm

And some third-party harrowing stories of laser mayhem…… :person_facepalming:

https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Laser_Safety_Little_Mistakes_with_Big/a25167

Remember, it’s up to 20x as powerful as it seems to the eye (because it’s blue).

Those goggles are OD7+ so theoretically they should reduce the 6W of laser down to 0.0000006W (.00006mW) which is safe.
That is of course assuming the laser doesn’t stay on the goggles for very long or it will burn a hole through.

Yes, OD7 is quite strong. This topic becomes interesting when you take into account that a laser can be focussed using an optic…

In the above links I posted this Sam Goldwasser sez that laser glasses/goggles which are too restrictive are actually dangerous becuz ya can’t readily see at times where the beam is projecting, ending, etc. So the propensity is to do a quick sneak peek. That’s when apparently some of these eye injuries have occurred even from people who really know better.

It appears the more powerful the laser the proper goggle fitting process encompasses some touchy fine print.

Hey I’m just glad Endy isn’t gonna invite me over to sing ‘Candelas in the Wind’ while he fires up the scary sukkah. :open_mouth: :person_facepalming: