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.
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
The NH D15 is basically the best cooler that won’t be a liquid cooler.
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
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.
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. :person_facepalming: