lightboards using 5 mw 650NM leds ?

Hello There,

Can any one tell me if theres anywhere online - ( or alternatively any one here ) that sells a light board much like the sort you see for growing , but with 650nm 5mws.

I cant build this myself right now as I have my hands full , and just wanted a cheap relatively inexpensive / way i could cut to the chase to see if this helped with my health problems - without the steep learning curve / building.

I dont really know a heck of a lot about lazers , other than these 5mw 650mn lazer pointers seem to help mine and others neuropathy issues , so I wanted to see what they were like with a greater surface area coverage.

As I said , I dont want to build this myself because i really have little experience in even basic electronics other than some soldering.

If any of this makes sense and you feel you can help or offer some suggestions id be happy to hear them , or any other thoughts about how i could go about achieving my cunning plan.

thanks ,

snoko

Have you tried goggling this :thinking:

Flaminpyro said:

Have you tried goggling this :thinking:

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Hey,

Not exactly sure what that is .. looks like wire to me.

What I meant by light board was something that looked more like this

So basically a panel of leds .

Sorry if I wasnt too clear - im a first timer - so be gentle with me

melon

Bit of confusion above. Flaminpyro didn't mean "have you tried googling this: (signature stuff)" but rather "have you tried using google to find a solution to your problem?"

Regarding your question, it seems like having a board coposed of lots of 5mW laser modules wouldn't help - it would produce a lot of little red dots. And unless they were very, very, carefully aligned they'd be all over the place and not in a regular grid fashion. If you want the projection from the laser to cover a wider area, buy a higher power laser and adjust the focus so that at the distance from the laser to the surface it's of the area you need. Alternatively, if it is lots of dots you want, buy a slightly higher power laser and use a diffraction grating.

EDIT: Just did some googling, it seems it's an infrared (808nm) laser that's used and not a 5mW red. I wouldn't go playing with 808nm lasers in a medical context...

I just happened to run into an IR 880nm LED light pad on ebay 880nm INFRARED LED LIGHT PAD HOLISTIC HEALING | eBay. It is way overpriced for what it is. A lot of people could build you one for much less.
I personally don't buy the medical effects of light but you didn't ask for an opinion on that.

I think he wants an improvement over something like the 5mw 660nm versions, which are just a single diode, and which that same guy mentioned above selling the 880's also sells.

Seems to be 2 or 3 wavelenghts being used for such.

I recall a guy a while back that got hundreds of 5mw red pointers in a box of auction winnings, he didnt know what to do with them all, could have built the next gen 660 laser light therapy pad. Just a passing thought and maybe a new idea???

Interesting stuff.

...

joenobody said:

I think he wants an improvement over something like the 5mw 660nm versions, which are just a single diode, and which that same guy mentioned above selling the 880's also sells.

Seems to be 2 or 3 wavelenghts being used for such.

I recall a guy a while back that got hundreds of 5mw red pointers in a box of auction winnings, he didnt know what to do with them all, could have built the next gen 660 laser light therapy pad. Just a passing thought and maybe a new idea???

Interesting stuff.

...

Click to expand...

Hi-

Yes a lot of these companies are touting the same strength of lasers are fix-it-all cures for anything from deep tissue injuries to hair loss to nerve related issues - lucky me actually has all 3 - so part of my interest in this was to see if it possible to create something that worked as well without the blatant overpricing these companies use. ( in other words a machine that had more options to ideally customize the strength / depth of the lazer )

Where it gets confusing is that a lot of these companies dont really clarify what the difference between led ( light ) and lazer is ,so they use the same term for both things instead, hence you have some products like this being called led , lazer or given other names like monochromatic infrared energy therapy, that to the untrained seems different (purely i assumed for generating more market interest )

Even Anodyne Therapy which as is the most commonly used application for Neuropathy has claimed to been LLLT so it can get really confusing.

Heres the FDAs definition " The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies LLLT devices as Class II devices as “lamp, non-heating, for adjunctive use in pain therapy” (produce code NHN) "

And from the American Cancer Society


Here are some further links below that might of interest with various companies and information, the proneurolight has reported to be successful with some people on neuropathy forums - but Im not sure about the k-laser

The last link shows the sort of lazer pointer folk like me are resorting to using as sort of poormans way of trying to combat this, of course the size of the light means it takes a lot of time to cover a surface area as large as a leg , or even foot .

LED Light Therapy

K-1200 | K-LaserUSA

ProNeuro Light
ProNeuro Light Bootie System

Amazon.com: Red Laser Pointer: Electronics

Finally an interesting post about some guy who built a 1072nm LED Helmet - such as the type used for hair loss - to help his sister.


snoko

Alright. If it is a red pointer you're using to help yourself, but you want it to cover more area, get something like this...
New Style red laser 200mW /adjustable [OLNRL200] - $45.99 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce
...and unfocus it. Should you go ahead with this, tell me and I'll do some maths to figure out how far away from yourself you should hold it.

Where on your body do you use it? That laser should be ok I think unless it's on your face. Don't ever point it, focussed, at any point on your body.

Disclaimer: I'm working on what's been described by the OP - that is, working towards the goal of being able to impart 5mW of ~660nm light onto a larger surface than the small areas a regular 5mW presentation pointer projects onto. I have tried to consider safety, but if there is something I am not aware of please bring it up as appropriate and we'll try to find a different solution.
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. This is a laser hobbyist attempting to help someone who visitted a hobbyist forum asking for help.

JaiNobeZ said:

Alright. If it is a red pointer you're using to help yourself, but you want it to cover more area, get something like this...
New Style red laser 200mW /adjustable [OLNRL200] - $45.99 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce
...and unfocus it. Should you go ahead with this, tell me and I'll do some maths to figure out how far away from yourself you should hold it.

Where on your body do you use it? That laser should be ok I think unless it's on your face. Don't ever point it, focussed, at any point on your body.

Disclaimer: I'm working on what's been described by the OP - that is, working towards the goal of being able to impart 5mW of ~660nm light onto a larger surface than the small areas a regular 5mW presentation pointer projects onto. I have tried to consider safety, but if there is something I am not aware of please bring it up as appropriate and we'll try to find a different solution.
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. This is a laser hobbyist attempting to help someone who visitted a hobbyist forum asking for help.

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I want to really try and avoid the whole single diode route if possible , unless i'm missing something -its just seems like it would be too small to be of any use ( we're talking the whole leg including foot after all ) so I don't see how a single
diode would help much more than the lazer pointer im already using - although it really depends on much surface area your talking ?

The only scenario i wouldnt mind using something coin size or whatever would be on smaller areas like knees ( where a deep lazer could penetrate and perhaps help my muscoskeletal / connective tissue issues in the joint ) or just the feet.

I much prefer the idea of using multiple diodes like shown here when it comes to using diodes to treat neuropathy if given a choice.

thanks again,

melon

Ok, with one high-power diode it won't affect a HUGE area, but maybe a circle with a 5cm or so diameter? I'm assuming your current diode is projecting a circle with a diameter of a few millimetres. That's some improvement at least. It seems like otherwise you'd have to DIY if you want to cover more area than that.

Defocused 200mW would provide the same 5mW power over an area 40x larger.

I'm not clear on whether you want laser light or if you consider led just as good. I know companies use both & I'm sure most will claim whichever one they use is better.

Both leds & lasers are supposed to be powered with constant current for a long reliable life but Leds are cheap enough you can build a large array of them without being as concerned about that. Here is a simple led light board LucidScience - Build the LED ARRAY ILLUMINATOR Its IR but 650nm could be done the same way.
Ebay has lots of 2-5mW lasers for sale 50 pcs 650nm 2-5mW 5V Laser Dot Module $40 (not constant current) but a single defocused 200mW laser really would be easier & better. Most likely giving more power per square cm too.
You could also have someone build you something with a very high power led. http://laserpointerforums.com/f42/9-amp-pt-54-phlatlight-maglite-mod-64054.html another http://laserpointerforums.com/f42/phlatlight-12w-red-led-flashlight-61010.html Their beam could cover your whole leg.

You really need laser goggles when using any high power light source. If you can see any of the light through them then don't trust those goggles. I would use goggles even for an array of lower power (eg 5mW) leds or lasers.

Can you do the math and let us know how far the 200 mW laser should be if defocussed to get 5 mW? Also, its possible to get diffraction gratings for some of these. Would they be useful, and what would you do then? Thanks

JaiNobeZ said:

Alright. If it is a red pointer you're using to help yourself, but you want it to cover more area, get something like this...
New Style red laser 200mW /adjustable [OLNRL200] - $45.99 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce
...and unfocus it. Should you go ahead with this, tell me and I'll do some maths to figure out how far away from yourself you should hold it.

Where on your body do you use it? That laser should be ok I think unless it's on your face. Don't ever point it, focussed, at any point on your body.

Disclaimer: I'm working on what's been described by the OP - that is, working towards the goal of being able to impart 5mW of ~660nm light onto a larger surface than the small areas a regular 5mW presentation pointer projects onto. I have tried to consider safety, but if there is something I am not aware of please bring it up as appropriate and we'll try to find a different solution.
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. This is a laser hobbyist attempting to help someone who visitted a hobbyist forum asking for help.

Click to expand...

BoJS said:

Can you do the math and let us know how far the 200 mW laser should be if defocussed to get 5 mW?

Click to expand...

Tricky question.

In order to know how large the 200mW laser must be defocussed to equal the output power of a 5mW laser, we must establish the size of the spot the 5mW laser is making – as our baseline.

I can see that 200mW is 40 times greater than 5mW.

Whatever the spot area is of the 5mW, we want the spot from our 200mW laser to be 40 times larger in area.

Using the formula for the area of a circle, we can grow a circle 40 times (in area) larger, by increasing its diameter 6.31 times.

If the 5mW laser makes a 1mm spot, then the 200mW laser will have the same theoretical optical density making a spot 6.31mm across. You can scale up from there.

Y'know, sometimes I think this forum is just being trolled by necroposters.