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:
I do everything in a closed room so as long as my eyes are safe it should be ok.
If the beam is concentrated I can still clearly see where it is, and if it spreads out past the focal point it ends up being low density and not capable of starting fires.
Fires and blindness are the main two safety concerns
JMO, butt I didn’t like it much when it was said to me “theoretically” when it came to things that can jack me up as they handed it off to me to try out. Ya know, bang, bang things. :cowboy_hat_face:
Ok understand. Now I’m curious though about sumthing. How do you absolutely KNOW that this particular pair of glasses will protect your eyes under the power levels only you really control? I assume the supplier sez that this particular diode at this particular top power range requires this minimum level of eye protection - and presumably you believe them. Or not?
However I surmise that you may exceed that range, maybe? And if so how do you determine watt glasses covers even inadvertent mistakes?
Ok. Enuff what ifs.
PS. Fires, blindness, and loss of love life. Hmmmmm. I’m not sure this is the right sequence of priorities for me. :laughing: :+1:
They are eagle pair glasses which according to my research over on the laser forums are a top brand.
Based on that I would trust the OD7 rating is true.
If you search up the OD scale you will find that level 7 is a 10 million reduction, which brings my 7W 450nm laser down to less than 1 microwatt.
That’s a lot less than the 1-5 milliwatt laser pointers that aren’t dangerous to eyesight.
I think you need to be in the tens or hundreds of milliwatts to cause damage.