Thanks for all the interest on my project. Feel free to ask again if I missed your question.
It would be great discussion if anyone can point out things that can be done more efficiently.

Sunnysunsun wrote:

How many diode banks/diodes do you have focused onto one little spot in the phosphor?

Perhaps some large heat fins attached to the phosphor disk would give it the extra cooling surface area it needs. Something shaped like turbine blades or just a couple of protruding rings to give it more surface area. It’ll have to be centered just right to maintain stability.

I have two NUBM31T (90W each @ 445nm) diode banks in the system. While operation at 90W output, it will draw about 270W input.
There was a great deal of ideas to approach on cooling the phosphor. Some methods required a great deal of back clearance for a heatsink. They also offered turbines in the back.
Most of these methods was not very space or dust conscious.
The fan version would eventually get the chamber hot as it is just mixing hot air and the aluminum extrusions may expand due to heat and I would loose the alignment of the two diode arrays. The heatsink method required a CNC block of aluminum which I really wanted to do. I would have looked very nice and would protrude out of a hole on the front lens, but it took up too much back clearance for my liking.

I finally opted for the filtered and pushed air to solve two issues. Actively cool PW and expel the hot air our of the system. As the air exits, it will pass by the aluminum and slightly by the optics to keep things cool. I also wanted to maintain positive pressure to keep everything nice and dust free so I used HEPA filter.

I was able to order a wheel with airfoils on the surface which could squeeze out another 10~20W of laser power.

Agro wrote:

So it looks like Maxablaster may not be the best thrower out there. Congrats likevvii, this took a lot of effort and it seems that the effort paid off.

I always wanted to be on that list haha. I was directly inspired by all of you back when I was playing with XPG2s and gasoline.

djozz wrote:

Wow! You have been busy! Are we looking at 150 Mcd throw?

150Mcd would be amazing!! I am running past the manufacturer specs so I wouldn’t really know what can happen. It will take some time to perfectly align the two diode arrays. I have designed a 1-axis swivel mount for the mirrors, but I still need to align the other axis and the distance of the laser array from the PW.

Everything is so compact, I cant get my thermal camera at a angle to read the phosphor wheel. I would be doing lux meter testing and watching until the curve starts to taper flat as my indicator that it has reached maximum.

JaredM wrote:

Another thought is using a collar in conjunction with the wheel. Mounting will be extra difficult, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t behave the same as with a static phosphor. — I’m imagining this mounting to a shield covering the cooling/off-center portion that should reduce a boat load of spill artifacts too. This front (inner? recoil design makes this a bit ambiguous) shield can also contain additional forced air ducts/fans.

So many orders of magnitude from anything most of us have ever seen, it’s crazy to think that there will be more light loss in the lens than many flashlights even make.

I have so many thoughts and questions. Can’t wait for beamshots but I’m 100% positive they won’t do it 10% justice.

Collars are magical little things. I’m surprised every time I play with one. I tried so hard to find a way to jam a collar into this design.
While using Enderman’s calculators I realized, collar + recoil designs are not very volume conscious. They take up so much volumetric space and my box would turn into a long boi.

It may not be the right place to bring it up, but I have spent an unimaginable amount of time contacting like 8 optics manufacturers in China to source collars, and also the parabolic mirror used in this project that is made out of glass. (The parabolic mirror I used here is aluminum)

If anyone is interested, it is possible to produce collars for 7USD each, 800pcs MOQ. They can make 60deg and 80deg apertures. The wavien patent is laughably weak. The patent is only valid if you sell a system with:
collar + FOUR OR MORE leds in a light producing system.
If you sell a flashlight with ONE LED + collar you would be totally safe.
If you just sell a bowl shaped mirror with a hole in it, you are untouchable.
I greatly respect wavien for this idea so I wont do anything myself at the moment.

Enderman wrote:

Very impressive

You’re basically combining all the best features, LEP, phosphor wheels, recoil reflectors, and liquid cooling.

Is the reflector glass or electroformed?
I had some issues with my first electroformed reflector, eve the slightest wire pushing on it would cause deformation.
Mounting it without distorting the parabola is difficult, so I ordered mine with a mount preinstalled.

Any reason you used the 31T instead of the 34T?
Better alignment or something?

Thanks Enderman, your builds + calculators have directly inspired me to make something really fun.

Sadly, I was not able to source any glass parabolic optics.
Mine was kindly made by phoenix electroforms and even had a nice rectangle hole cut out for me.
I was considering how to mount it. The option that the suppler gave me was the RTV glue at the base. I didn’t like the rigidity of that design so I decided to make a much wider carbon fiber holder. I mounted it by 3D printing a perfect profile to mate with the parabolic profile and then VHB taped it down carefully. It is appears to be very rigid as it grabs on to the edge of the reflector now. I haven’t did much focus testing yet as I am still trying to position the laser spots correctly at the centers first. Everything was designed to be able to shift around a few millimeters, so I hope that would be enough to get it right.

They are all made for Xenon lights where the focal point is deep in the middle of the reflector. The lowest I was quoted was like $5000 to make one. Optics making is basically limited to molding and then final grinding because grinding is crazy expensive.

I didn’t know about the nubm34 until recently. I probably would have picked the nubm34 if I knew. It is a much smaller package! There are other options like the OSRAM stuff, but I compared the beam quality and NICHIA is way better.

CNCman wrote:

WOW !! that project is very expensive !! Congrats for Millionaire to have such a project to share with us. What an engineering task that is plan and build. Great job !! Are you an Electrical or Mechanical Engineer ? .

Lollll. I just spend the money I make on projects. I have way more enjoyment building things than buying luxury things.
I was not able to finish jr college and transfer, very bad grades |: But during that time I learned how to contact China, make things, sell things, and make mistakes. I don’t know read or speak any mandarin so that was fun.

dave1010 wrote:

This is amazing! I look forward to more details.

100Mcd is 20km of ANSI throw!

How fast does the wheel need to spin? I’m wondering how much this could be miniaturised, with a wheel just 20mm or so.

Quote:

180W blue optical laser output

Quote:

Estimated OTF lumens 40000~50000 lumens

That’s over 200 lm/W (though there’s other losses before the laser output). Is that achievable with LEP?

The RPM of the wheel should be around 5000~9000RPM. It was factory balanced to around 6000RPM I think. It still vibrates a tiny bit.
The efficiency of ceramic phosphor is around 450lm/(Watts of literal BLUE laser)
But we need to convert the electricity into blue light. With an efficiency of about around 30~35% and also power required for the laser driver, Lasers need to stay below 65C so usually they require active cooling which adds to the overall system power. At the end would be maybe around 150lm/(Watts of electrical energy).

Sunnysunsun wrote:

It seems like you’ve exhausted (ha pun) a lot of the possibilities of air cooling. Could something wilder like evaporative cooling with tiny squirts of 99% IPA onto the back of the disk be a possibility?

That is a pretty good idea! I worked with liquid dispensing pumps before and it wouldn’t be too much trouble.
I used to fix phones as a business and realized that IPA even the 99.9% ones leave a very thin film of residue.
This might be an option for static phosphors instead of using TECs because they consume 2.5x the power to cool 1x of the power.

Agro wrote:

From memory: There are 2 or more collar patents. One is for RGB LEDs and maybe that’s what you mention when you say about 4 LEDs? There is a much more generic patent and it’s not easy to work around it.

Wow! I apologize and may have missed it. Do you have a link to the second patent? I had gone over the first one (4LEDs) with a patent lawyer and was told it was not very effective if someone just wanted to sell bowl shaped mirrors.

Robin Dobbie wrote:

Looking forward to the how-to youtube video and the BOM! lol

Yeah, there will be videos and I can show the zooming function.
I used the top of the line consumer components for the sake of project success. But the economic version of this build will be cheaper than most people think
Wayyy less than a W50.
It was pretty fun to build. I barely needed to drill or cut anything. Now that I have did the fitment in person, I modified the 3D files and there is no cutting required at all for the entire build.

Holzleim wrote:

Wow, impressive….

Did not think such can be done without special lab equipment.

What about savety here: How dangerous are these Laser regarding damage to your eyes?

I’m used to build my own stuff from scratch, but this is somewhat new to me….

Keep going, looking forward to let it burn the sky..

I personally believe lasers are not dangerous if you take it slowly and have a clear understanding of all your equipment. A laser is no more dangerous than an arc welder. Just need the right equipment. It really helps when only a maximum of 1 person is involved in the project. Safety accidents with lasers is mostly because of communication errors.
I do appreciate the fact that people online make big deal out of lasers and say it will insta blind you by being near it without goggles. These people are literally saving lives with white lies.
It all has to do with power entering and focusing into your retina.
Your recent project was super awesome! I had always wanted to solder emitters directly to a copper block. I also wanted to try soldering emitters to a copper heatpipe too haha.