Going to finally attempt RG=Y

Plan B said:

I've read countless times on this forum that a good place to start when mixing yellow is 4 to 1 mW, red to green. I see above that both Leo and Meat recommend 5-6 to 1 mW ratio. In his review of the CNI PGL-RG 150mW ohada recorded 145 mW green to 30 red for a ratio of about 4.8 to 1. From the pics he posted I would say it made for a nice colored yellow.

Is there a formula to calculate perceived frequency? Say you take two or more lasers of known mw and nm and assume perfect alignment and beam characteristics, can you then calculate the apparent frequency of the combined light? I know your not actually producing 589 nm light but can you calculate that it would look like 589 nm.

MFO, I've seen some very cool DIY optic mounts on this site that look pretty simple to make. A drill, a dremmel, some L bracket, small bolts and springs is about all it would take I think. It would probably be tricky to mount small optics harvested from a sled though. If space restrictions are an issue you might be better off to buy. You can also buy mountable labby style heatsinks for the modules. I'm not sure how you could DIY those effectively.

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Search for Chroma on PL. Should be a thread by Tocket, it's a very handy program for color balances. But nothing beats seeing it with your eyes and matching it.

@Meatball, Plan B and Prototype
Chroma calculates based on the human eye sensitivity. You need to consider rayleigh scattering and other factors that I may not really understand.

@Prototype
Agreed

But nothing beats seeing it with your eyes and matching it.

Click to expand...

Plan B said:

Is there a formula to calculate perceived frequency?

Click to expand...

Chroma does a decent job. The CIE color space is another approximation:

Leodahsan said:

48mW 532nm = 1W 445 (source: chroma)

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This thread is about color balance, not brightness balance.

Leodahsan said:

they don't balance very well without corrective optics , but agreed 445nm is dimmer.

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I was referring to color balance, not beam characteristic similarities.

@Cyparagon
Oh ok. But again IMO, it won't balance fine in a distance if one of the lasers had a different divergence.

mfo said:

Thanks for your feedback everyone. I will carefully weigh all of my options. The only thing I really don't have a game plan for yet is how I'm going to mount the modules and the optics. Clueless on this one lol.

@Len - Yeah, go for it dude. I'd love to see some pics

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***************************************************

OK let the pic heavyness begin.

This is a SunClan Magenta( I refuse to call it Pink--too gay!)

Here is a printout from the eekbAY listing- some outside shots followed by view inside from the rear first.

This looks like a fairly hard build due to the fact that the top of the housing does not come off. So all the inside parts must be installed from the front or back, There are four screws in both the front and back. There is a LED(yellow) but no switch. Five screw heads show on the bottom.

My Kenometer tells me that it puts out 155mWs-so NOT a 6X 405-- just a PHR afaik and a red dode from a 20X burner, The 405 has a SMD driver and the red has a larger one on a pcb. There is a VR mounted on a HS on one of the inside walls.

The housing is quality- about 4"X4"X2" all metal.

IMO Sunclan made no profit on this one, which may explain why they have not built/listed any more.

Aryntha has a few of the other Sunclan combined lasers.

My very first 8 mW 405 came from Sunclan in 2008 and cost me 140$ btw.

The dichro is not from a sled and the red diode passes- the 405 is reflected- it is about 1/4 " by 1/2" and the dichro mount is homebrew and it looks like a slight banging would dislodge the glued on dichro.

The heatsinks are neither large nor small, but big enough that Sunclan claims a 100% duty cycle.

Here are some pics from the front. BTW the piece of the front plate is just a opening hole- no glass in it. I cannot tell if the lenses on the diodes are glass or acrylic- my guess is plastic.

bump

cant belive no one wants to do these---what happened??

yellow

magenta

and teal lasers on the cheap.

oh well I did my part


hak

I have plans to market a magenta module that would drop in a P60 flashlight, However things that involve green will be hard to do in a not huge handheld due to the real estate DPSS takes up... However I have a crapload of other projects I need to get done first before I even start thinking about it seriously.

@Hak
I wanted a 15mW max magenta laser, pen style, but I have no clue how to get red + blue mixed togeter on a small pen host Do you have any ideas dude? Thanks!

^^^ Leonardo


Some success was had IIRC fisrt here at LPF by Rog using a combo red/green pointer and the tiny dichro and mirror from a sled to make a yellow pen, but I have yet to see a pointer with Br and green.

I am not even trying that until I can build a mini labby with 6x and 635 40 mW diode. I have another 635 40mW diode i will combine with a 30mWgreen module to make yellow.
These mini labbies will go into my massive Lumia Projector. #3 counter revolving overlapping wheels with red/magenta/yellow/Bluray/green/ Teal(or as some call it aqua)and 445 blue. Some have ttl divers.
mean time look at these..............

http://laserpointerforums.com/f51/tutorial-yellow-pointer-project-cool-44427.html

and here

http://laserpointerforums.com/f42/aqua-laser-405nm-532nm-55534.html

and

http://laserpointerforums.com/f42/crazy-yellow-idea-52458-2.html
and here
http://laserpointerforums.com/f42/yellow-pointer-beam-shots-added-26413.html

I will post my pics as my project build being done.

hope this helps

Leonard

aka hak

Hak, I got one of those Sunclan magentas, same unit you have -- and it's an embarrassment, and really upsets me.

On top of it taking about 4 months to get...

Basically, the red is doing 1mW at best, and a PHR on the 405. It's completely diverged, even though they promised me it wouldn't be; and I sent it back twice, only to have it arrive in worse condition after the fact.

The only solace I have on it is that hopefully I can just replace the damn red with something legitimate and align it all myself.

Looks like you got lucky. I wouldn't recommend Sunclan. Ever.

@hakzaw
Thanks for the links. I saw a blue/red pen on dealextreme or priceangels some day, unfortunatly it uses N3 batteries IIRC.. I'll be doing a research on that.

offtopic: your name is Leonard? :O

aryntha said:

Hak, I got one of those Sunclan magentas, same unit you have -- and it's an embarrassment, and really upsets me.

On top of it taking about 4 months to get...

Basically, the red is doing 1mW at best, and a PHR on the 405. It's completely diverged, even though they promised me it wouldn't be; and I sent it back twice, only to have it arrive in worse condition after the fact.

The only solace I have on it is that hopefully I can just replace the damn red with something legitimate and align it all myself.

Looks like you got lucky. I wouldn't recommend Sunclan. Ever.

Click to expand...

Yes I think I got lucky considering my bid of 51$ total won the auction(Thanx Auction Sniper!!) and i get 150mWs.
I would NEVER attempt to build such a combo laser into a box that only opened at the ends.
My plan is to build one on an Al plate and then put that into a case(prolly a old PC PS box painted flat black-im a cheapster and those are free) My dichros come from old ca5io projectors big and easier to use. a 'holder' can be fashioned from a piece of Al. right angle piece. glue into place then drill holes to mount to the plate.

Shims can be used for fine tuning and alignment.

Leodahsan said:

@hakzaw
Thanks for the links. I saw a blue/red pen on dealextreme or priceangels some day, unfortunatly it uses N3 batteries IIRC.. I'll be doing a research on that.

offtopic: your name is Leonard? :O

Click to expand...

Please let us know via a post in this thread if you find any pen lasers or handheld containing two wavelengths.

thnx for the comments.

Leonard III
aka hak

CNI sells a 150mW yellow (Red and Green) for $435

Cyparagon said:

CNI sells a 150mW yellow (Red and Green) for $435

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Thanks, but no thanks. That's pretty expensive considering it's not even a true yellow. I'd much rather attempt to do this myself for a fraction of the cost. With that being said...

I received my green module today from modwerx (thanks andrew @ modwerx.com). Now, all that's left to do as far as powering these goes is the driver for my SmOC. I have one inside of a custom aixiz module made by sightfx.

So, which driver should I use to power this? To power this build, I was going to use (3) NiMH AA batteries. This should give me roughly 3.6-3.8 volts. I want to use an adjustable driver for this build for the red diode, so that I can make the beam more orange or lime, depending on how I feel when I'm using it. I was thinking of using a flex drive. I see I can set the current range between 108~412mA using this driver. My question is, can I toggle the drivers output while the laser is on? Probably not the best of ideas, I remember the flexdrives pot being ridiculously sensitive last time I attempted to set a current.

Do you guys have any recommendations to help me out with this?

Also, to glue the dichro in place, hot glue gun ftw?