I've got a question for you guys.

Rafa said:

Now you have misspelled "for"

By the way, OP, when you finish that thing, post pics!

Click to expand...

And "referring", you did not notice that, did you?

Nah, let it die.

FS mirrors can be found in sites like surplusshed, and maybe on the forum here, but question is if there is enough quantity suitable for your project.

I have found that after 5-6 "bounces" the beam will become very poor. The higher quality mirrors you use, the better off you will be.
As has been mentioned, Surplus Shed has some cheap FS mirrors. Buy 2X the number that you will need, as around 30% of them are not up to spec. (but for the price, you can't go wrong)

That is why I suggest hard drive platters. While you may have to cut them yourself, I think that they are really good as far as preserving as much of the beam as possible. You can buy broken hard drives on ebay, Here is a listing for 10 drives, which would have a minimum of 10 platters, probably 1.5-1.7" in diameter. If you cut them into quarters you have 40 mirrors, and if there are two platters per drive you have 80 mirrors for 20 bucks. I'm pretty sure you cant top that even at surplus shed. There will be high powered neodymium magnets in there too, and those are fun to play with too!

TOSHIBA MK2006GAL 20GB 1.8" Hard Drive Broken - Qty 10 - eBay (item 250631569024 end time May-18-10 19:29:29 PDT)

@Dave- best bet is the AixiZ 15mW green-overspec and plenty bright-ships fast(from Houston) and comes with support & warantee. and yes find a vented project box to protect the driver board. Fans are not needed. You will have to find your own 5 vdc wallwart-not hard to do. The AixiZ 50mW can be wired to run off mains andis way overspec to--I have a pair and love them. btw green pen lasers die if left on too long-no heatsink.

Free FS mirrors are inside old flat bed scanners and 1$ Polaroid One-step cameras--look at thrift shops for both, for other than green you may want a cheap fog machine to make the beams show up. For green the fog will make them awesome.

on Ebay geareb sells a red module that puts out around 100mWs powered by a walwart can run continously ,,,and trust me ...you will want to add more colors eventually- .

PM me if you want a good deal on FS mirrors--I have plenty.---HZ

Just got the Aixiz 15mw lab green and am a bit confused. It has 2 power supplies? TTL 0-5vdc and power 5+vdc? The above post mentioned a 5 vdc wallwart. Is this for the TTL or power or both?

Thanks for the help!