12x Murder Fund! + Graph!

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

HIMNL9 said:

BTW, according wit the datasheet, perhaps you need at least a 6V 1A driver, for run it ..... "absolute maximum rating" of 1.2A ..... considering the variance in efficency, if you find a freak, you can get 1.8W at 1A, LOL.

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what?huh i didnt understand a word you said....................but ok

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

ossumguywill said:

Oh my god.... am I reading this right? a 1 watt blue (not violet, blue) diode?

Jesus christ monkey balls
forget 12x, how about 50x blue!

will

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You guys do realize that this is a multimode diode, and that Nichia does not offer micro-FAC lens installation inside the can?

It is possible to make a laser out of it, but there are numerous problems associated with making it work, even if FAC is solved. One of the problems has to do with the fact that the diode is not made to work at 80°C, which is one of the things that makes abusing DVD / BR diodes so easy for us.

I have one more page to read, if we are close to the decision, i can start it back up now.

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

jayrob said:

It sure will be nice when they get affordable...

You can get a 50mW 445nm now, but it cost about 5 or 6 hundred dollars...
http://www.sonic.net/~jayrob/DL-445-50-1.pdf

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To be honest, that's a diode i've been looking at for a while, even with that price tag. I mean afterall, i paid more than that for this one green and i'm not even all that happy with it...


It's single mode, 50mW CW and bluE, so imagine a blue PHR. At least that's how i see it.

It would be awesome to have a 100mW 450nm laser! :evil:
I imagine it would last as long as a PHR at 100mW, in theory it could be pushed further, but with 450nm diodes being completelly unknown, better safe than sorry at this cost.

GB anyone?


P.S. And it IS rated to work at high temperatures, making it work would be ridiculously easy.
Altho i thought it came in normal 5.6mm package too...

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

Hemlock_Mike said:

IgorT ---

Don't let my results change your plan. I turned my 12x to 600 mW+ because It's mine. I can do that. I also don't run it for more than 30 seconds at a time and for maybe 5 minutes a day. Your test is more scientific relating to long term life expectancy demanded by the members here.

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Actually i get the feeling i'm the only one obsessed with long life expectancy... :undecided:

I want to run the test the way the people who donated for it wish to see it run....

Hemlock_Mike said:

My short excursion to 1 watt was a total of 4 seconds and I'm glad the diode survived.

HMike

@ Skew ..... If you want to turn your 12 X up to 1 Watt, be sure to graph the results. We would love to see it.

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Ok, you pushed it to 1W and it didn't pop. Now that's a good sign.

One last question, what was the current where it did 1W. That and what is the current now and the precise power? These two points are enough to make a graph including Ith.


I don't want to plot the test diode to 1W, cos it would take a while, possibly long enough for popping to take place.
But this piece of info does make me more comfortable setting it to 420mA...




I just set the driver to exactly 420mA. Since it usually comes out 3mA higher than calculated at these high currents, i aimed at 417mA (1.4 // 1.43 // 1.47 // 15ohms) and it worked.

Are we good to go? I'm kinda eager to flip the Cycler switch.. :evil:

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

Slipstream said:

what?huh i didnt understand a word you said....................but ok

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LOL ..... anyway .....

The datasheet say "absolute maximum rating" is 1A in current, and say that the efficency is from 0.8W/A minimum to 1.8W/A maximum ..... so, if you find a "freaky high efficent" one, you can push it to 1.8W staying on 1A of current (ofcourse, this reduce the life of the diode, that is planned for 1W CW) ..... just that, what i meant

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

420mW sounds perfect for me. If you want my opinion, wait for the poll to end and let the murder start

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

Ok, horrible horrible news time.

I just tested the 12x at 420mA. The pattern it produced on the wall was perfectly round and "splotchy". :undecided:
It should not have been round through this lens, as for the patterns in it... They reminded me of something bad...

It had strange weird symetrical pattern, oddly familiar, if it's a kink it's one i never saw before.

I measured it's power and it was barelly over 360mW! :cryyy:


All i did was set the driver to 420mA, put it in the torture chamber, and flipped the Test switch (for measuring top power for replotting), and aimed it at my meter.

Now i need to remove it and put it on the Diode Analyzer and retest from the start.


Chances nothing bad happened are very low, and limited to the PSU failing due to being underpowered or the low efficiency 12x hitting a KINK...

If anyone's around, pray during the Diode Analyzer re-test.




EDIT: This is what it looks like at 420mA...



It's strange and completelly deformed, and produces this strange "smiley" face like pattern.
I've seen this pattern many times before. Only difference is, it was in LED form, and the diode was not lasing.

The bizzare thing is, this particular diode is not dead dead. It's still lasing, and a lot too, i measured over 360mW with this strange output.
If it was in the torture chamber, the sensor would still detect it as alive, and keep counting.


Question is, what the hell do i do now? I definitelly need to put it on the analyzer to see if it's "just" a horrible kink, but... What if it doesn't go away? :undecided:

I'm scared. The precious 12x is a zombie... Haven't seen those in a while.

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

WTF 360mW???

Not died but not good? could be the lens being damaged? amagod NOOOOOOOOO!

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

Hallucynogenyc said:

WTF 360mW???

Not died but not good? could be the lens being damaged? amagod NOOOOOOOOO!

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The lens is fine, it's the 408nm AR coated "Nichia lens" i got from my manufacturer and am using cos it measures same as 405-G-1.


And yes, instead of the 590mW i predicted from the PIV plot it measured 363mW or so.

For a moment it almost made sense in my head until i remembered it should have been 560mW at 400mA. Then i aimed it at the wall.


Now i have a weird smiley face instead of a hell of a lot of power. :cryyy:


The missing power is the result of the darker areas in the spot. I fear the diode is dead.



Now i need to sell a personal CR2 Keychain Freak 6x laser, so i can afford another 12x diode to kill. :undecided:

How much do 12x's cost right now? Anyone?

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

Igor, I've seem them as low as 199.99$ with free shipping in the USA. I'd be willing to chip in 50$ for a new 12x murder diode since I missed out on the previous murder fund, and take that 6x CR2 off your hands if you'd like?

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

There is one thing i didn't consider before.


The diode ran for 4 hours and 11 minutes (ON-Time) at 393mA before i stopped it.

I did not check the beam profile in between that and this just now.

Like i said, the sensor would not detect a problem, and the counter would keep counting even if this happened during cycling.


I heard of 8x's DEVELOPING kinks at the high currents they were set to. Hemlock Mike reported this a while back with his 8x, which was set to over 500mW IIRC.


I don't know how many 12x's are around, but i am willing to bet my life none of them has over an hour or two max on it just yet. It takes a while to reach a single hour.


I was, and still am considering selling my personal CR2 keychain, and redoing the experiment, but what if this was not a weird bad diode (it was the lowest efficiency one but...) and it happens again even at 390mA?!?




For now i let the 8x run it's course on the Cycler, the 12x is outside of the torture chamber.

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

skewbasteve said:

Igor, I've seem them as low as 199.99$ with free shipping in the USA. I'd be willing to chip in 50$ for a new 12x murder diode since I missed out on the previous murder fund, and take that 6x CR2 off your hands if you'd like?

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Hey there skewbasteve!

If you can, would you contact me on Skype so we can arrange the details of the CR2 laser if you want it? Otherwise, drop me an email...



I badly wanna do this experiment, but this diode is busted. It would probably keep running in the torture chamber for a while, but it can be considered BADLY degraded - definitelly beyond the point where even the manufacturers consider it useless.

I tested it on the Diode Analyzer, and it starts out with this weird pattern, it's not a kink.



Only thing i regret now is not replotting it every single hour of the 393mA test. :undecided:

Before just now one hour did not make a measurable difference, now i can't know for sure what happened. This degradation could have occured during the 393mA cycling.

I planned doing a complete replot before starting the 420mA cycling, but then it was suddenly too late.

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

If you spend money on a second one Igor, you may want to consider turning it down to 360mA's...

After alll, it's not your fault it died at 393mA's... That's the result of the test at 393mA's for that particular (low efficiency 12X) diode...

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

IgorT, just so you know, I've had a 12X running at 305mA for several hours now. I'd say about 4-5 to be exact. That was before something got burned onto the diode window. Flaminpyro has just successfully cleaned it, and will be testing the output very soon.

I know it's not set very high, but I run my lasers for long periods of time.

I guess I don't believe in duty cycles! I believe in BIG heatsinks though!

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

i wonder if breaking out the window on the diode might help, Ive seen those weird shapes on my 8x , and it turned out that the little window had become loose.

Re: 12x Murder Fund! (Complete!)

This is indeed a great shame...

If you want money for another diode then give me a shout and will donate what I can