405nm laser lava lamp.

First of all I would like to thank forum member iskor (Heath) for helping provide the pelter for my build. Get better Heath! GB.

I took a little over 3 months to copulate the parts and inspiration for this simple build, but in the end it came out just as I had liked it to.

Pics were taken with a 3.5 megapix camera phone... the night shots
doesn't do this build justice.

First off, the CPU unit had been center line honed and machined for the custom copper heatsink.

Here is the set screw.



Grounding the unit was something that took some time and thought.
The fan mount was plastic soo I found a wire from a scrap camera that had a little clip that worked nicely.

I used a three way switch so I could have battery power supply as well as a wall unit PSU. thats what u see with the banana hook assembly:tinfoil:



A PHR-803T running off a rckstr driver at 120mA acrylic lens



It would have been a shame to hide the unit under the lid so the intent here was to use it as a platform as well as aesthetics:wave:

I next purchased a 10" lava lamp gutted it and drained the liquid and the wax.




The finished product... very pleasing to the eyes also a slight hum of the fan adds to a scwheeet project. I love this hobby.:thanks:


http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/qq125/jander6442/laser%202/SNC00580.jpg[/IMG
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A couple of other things... the camera shows the beam as wider than seen in person and the bottom of the glass had some scattering/focusing issues that a good cleaning and minor polishing help out.

Also, at first, I was going to use food colorings and even glitter with oils and different mixes, but nothing worked as good as plain
ol' water.

An updated you-tube video. I would like to thank forum member BruceN for a highlighter dye that he sent out. The video doesn't quite show the beauty of it. You'll have to build one of your own, but it's quite memerizing. Thanks Bruce.

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Thanks for looking. jander6442

That's very COOL.:gj:

Nice job looks sweet. Very creative idea.

try emptying the ink of a good ol yellow highlighter into the water!

this is what happened when i pointed mine at the tip of one

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Thats great!...Up the power and perhaps try some different lenses to see what they look like. pretty cool idea!:gj:

not sure I follow what you did there

Beautiful! That looks like the perfect lamp for a laser enthusiast Very nice pictures as well. The highlighter ink idea sounds like it could be interesting too, I would like to see if that works out.

i pointed my 405nm at the tip of a highlighter....


follow?

I like the highlighter Idea... I'm going to try just a yellow sticker at the top of the lamp in the area where the dot meets the top for that reflective bright whitish explosion.

Turning the PHR diode current up is not an option for me. I have passive cooling yet I want the diode to last. I would in the event of its failure be replacing it with a 8x.

I'm sticking with 405nm for this build

Nice lava lamp mod...

Thank you sir.

DjHeadie said:

i pointed my 405nm at the tip of a highlighter....


follow?

Click to expand...

Thats alot of lens flare! It would be cool to crack one open and see what you can do with it though.

Nice one.

Different from my idea, but still nice.

+1 for the inventive :beer:

532 with Envy said:

Thats alot of lens flare! It would be cool to crack one open and see what you can do with it though.

Click to expand...

actually thats near zero lens flare, in real life it is much more than anyone should look at, it was ridiculously bright, and ridiculously yellow.

might make an interesting experiment as a make-shift....Diode../..marker../..dye laser :thinking:

right, ive... considered it, however there is no lasing with this medium, just a ton of ... stray photons, the way ive thought of it, it would be some sort of strange flashlight, with teh 405 activating the light from the ink, then that light being (attempt to at least) focused for some sort of flash or room light.

but i have way more stuff i NEED to get done compared to the goofy s i want to get done.