I'm getting an error message on my Laser Bee A!

And that is a good thing... It did take me second to realize what was going on though. I was sort of freaking out at first. It happened very fast.



I am quite sure that when I get my Ophir head setup I will be seeing well over 2 watts with the speed at which this hits the limit of the LaserBee A


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

What is crazy is that this is one of daguin's H140's and I'm only running a mohgasm linear 1.62 (is that right? Or is it 1.68?) driver. I heat sinked the driver with one of those pieces of copper that everyone was talking about in Ryan's thread earlier. I am using one of Jayrobs G-1lenses.

The host is one I started on a while back. It has a HUGE heat sink. I ran it for several minutes outside and it was WARM around the fins, but not hot.

This is from when I got the heat sink made...


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

This is a personal build so I didn't take a lot of photos, but here are a few of the finished product.


tail stand 2 by tsteele93, on Flickr


tail stand 1 by tsteele93, on Flickr


2.? 445nm by tsteele93, on Flickr


2.? 445nm laser 2 by tsteele93, on Flickr


2.? 445nm laser 3 by tsteele93, on Flickr

Thanks for looking...

That is one 'heavy duty' looking laser

With the massive BeCu heat sink I was a little worried about it falling over when doing the tail stand shots! But it was stable. (P.S. Sorry about the iPhone shots, I'll try to get some good ones soon)

The two things that took the longest were the battery compartment! (I ended up using a tube from an old broken Chinese green and wrapping it with tape to fit inside without rattling) and the tail clicky is cheap and was giving me fits. It would turn on as soon as I screwed it in place.

I finally was able to lessen the pressure on it and it is working now, but I really need a better clicky for it.

I'm running two AW IMR red 16380's right now. I don't know how long they will last. I'd like to set it up for better batteries.

It is a great host, I love the fins and they feel like they are actually radiating the heat a little. But it doesn't get that warm anyway with that huge chunk of BeCu in there.

I'm going to end up giving this as a gift to my brother (I think:eg and I have a C10100 version of that sink and I am going to use a copper module and run it at 1.8A and see what it does. I don't think 2.5W is at all unreasonable to hope for... Judging from the way this one hit 2W without even really slowing down, it may be there already!

:thanks:

tsteele93 said:

(P.S. Sorry about the iPhone shots, I'll try to get some good ones soon)

Click to expand...

I was wondering about that... I didn't think the 7D exhibited *that* much noise.

Great build though.

Trevor

Man.... you're giving me a heat attack....:crackup:
I thought you found a never seen before
problem with your LaserBee A..


Yeah.... your Laser is putting out a tad more than 2W...:yh:


Jerry

lasersbee said:

Man.... you're giving me a heat attack....:crackup:

I thought you found a never seen before problem with your LaserBee A..

Yeah.... your Laser is putting out a tad more than 2W...:yh:

Jerry

Click to expand...

I didn't mean to scare you, but I didn't even know what to think at first. With a 1.6x A driver I wasn't expecting to break 2W and definitely wasn't expecting to rocket right up to it! It took me a second for it to sink in to my thick noggin what was actually going on!

You are going to have to start making 4 Watt laserbees! (I assume you do have that sort of thing on EBay.)

:drool:

Also do you know where that host come from?

knarly dude... careful with that beast it might have ripped into the space time continuum

tsteele93 said:

I didn't mean to scare you, but I didn't even know what to think at first. With a 1.6x A driver I wasn't expecting to break 2W and definitely wasn't expecting to rocket right up to it! It took me a second for it to sink in to my thick noggin what was actually going on!

You are going to have to start making 4 Watt laserbees! (I assume you do have that sort of thing on EBay.)

Click to expand...

We do have a higher end LaserBee II with a much faster response
time that can handle up to 3.2Watts...

Products

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/150766592718?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

or even a Limited Edition 5W LaserBee using an OPHIR Head with
or without Data Logging only on eBay.

Those should handle any single 445nm LD build to date...:beer:


Jerry

Well, I decided to go ahead and give the Ophir head a try tonight. Since I have a 445nm that is going over the 2W max of my Laser Bee A, I figured that was reason enough to give it a try.

Here is what I ended up with...


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

This was after I had packed everything up.

Basically, I stripped the wires on the wall warts, made sure I knew which was positive and which was negative. (Which of course the wires were marked with ridges, but I wanted to be sure.) They are rated at 12v but they were putting out 14.85v.


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

I wired them exactly like Seoul lasers diagram (which was the same as the one sent with the Ophir Head that I bought from a guy named Peter - as you can see in the diagram below) and used good old ac wire nuts for the connections. Then I plugged the wall warts (facing the same way) into a surge protector with the power cut off. I terminated the sensor wires with alligator clips to make it easy to connect to the Power Meter because I couldn't find my fancy connectors and wires that came with it.


Ophir LPM Schematic by tsteele93, on Flickr

I hooked them up, then I turned on the power switch - fully expecting to blow a circuit or at least activate the breaker in the surge protector - and nothing happened.

So I donned my safety glasses and fired up the stainless steel beast with the G-1 lens. It started out with these readings.


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

At one point I saw .721v (2.16W) but I was only able to take pics of it at .718v , .717v and .716v (2.15W) and it eventually settled in right at .695v (2.08W) and pretty much stayed right there.


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

I have to say, my previous experience with my Survival lasers 445 running at around 1.2-1.4W (depending on the lens) did not prepare me fully for a 2.1 Watt laser. This thing is evil. Even HIGHLY defocused, it burns stuff. I kept an Amazon cardboard box as a backstop while doing some temperature tests and even hugely de-focused, I had to keep moving it or it would burn in just 5-10 seconds. If you look at some of the larger burn marks on the box you can see I probably had it over an inch wide at a couple of feet and it was burning!


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

And what temperature tests was I running? Well, I wanted to see what was heating up in this laser. It doesn't get real hot no matter how long you run it. I would venture to say that it has an unlimited duty cycle or at the very least, unlimited until the driver goes into protection.

It has a Mohgasm 1.62A linear driver (which in hindsight wasn't the best choice, but it was inexpensive) and I think that may be the weak link in the heat buildup. To test it, I ran the laser for a minute or so and measured the temperature of the pill vs the heat sink.

The pill was consistently hotter than the heat sink, by at least 10 degrees F.


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr


Untitled by tsteele93, on Flickr

I have the pill sinked to the backside of the BeCu heat sink, but it was not easy to get a GOOD connection to the heat sink. I'm pretty sure a cooler running, or better heat-sinked driver/pill would make this an unlimited duty cycle laser for sure!

Also, if anyone cares, those are AW IMR 16340's from lighthound that I am powering it with, so they seem to be rather capable of supplying the current needed for a 2.15 watt diode. I would love to find some 16340's that were of comparable quality to some of the Panasonic and Samsung 18650's we have available, but these seem to be working pretty well.

I think that sums it up - if you have any questions, please ask or if you spotted any mistakes let me know. Thanks!

Just a few questions.....



1) why are you taking temperature readings of your legs..:thinking:

An IR thermometer has a diverging cone of sensitivity..
It would probably take more accurate readings of your
Laser parts if the parts were placed on an ambient room
temperature surface with nothing else in IR thermometer's
Sensing cone.

2) what was the reading on your DMM with no Laser on
the surface of your OPHIR sensor... :thinking:

3) have you compared any <2000mW Lasers with your
LaserBee A and your new OPHIR head setup... :thinking:


Jerry

Jerry is right.



it'll mesure EVERYTHING in the "cone" , not just the intended target.

ped said:

Jerry is right.

it'll mesure EVERYTHING in the "cone" , not just the intended target.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but I couldn't measure and take the picture. So what you are seeing is the measured temp from where I was holding it down to the tube. The pics are just after measuring the temp, with the hold function.

You guys quit looking at my legs! :crackup:

lasersbee said:

Just a few questions.....

2) what was the reading on your DMM with no Laser on the surface of your OPHIR sensor... :thinking:

Click to expand...

Pretty sure it was zero or very close. I'll check and let you know.

3) have you compared any <2000mW Lasers with your LaserBee A and your new OPHIR head setup... :thinking:

Jerry

Click to expand...

No, but it was late and that was one of the first things I thought of after I hit the pillow. I figured that I would do a comparison test with the laser bee a on some <2W lasers and see how they compare today.

I'll try to post up the results this evening.

:thanks:

@ tsteele93

Damn.... I just replied to your same identical post on the
other Thread...:yabbmad:

You should ask a Mod to combine them... Posting Identical
Posts on different Threads and sections on the Forum just
spreads any info all over the place and is very confusing...


Jerry

lasersbee said:

Just a few questions.....

What was the reading on your DMM with no Laser on the surface of your OPHIR sensor... :thinking:

Click to expand...

The DMM hovered around 0.5mV -0.7mV - so that would be ~ 1.5mW -2.1mW I need to subtract from my overall reading I guess...

lasersbee said:

Have you compared any <2000mW Lasers with your LaserBee A and your new OPHIR head setup... :thinking:


Jerry

Click to expand...

I tested a 450nm and a 660nm to check both sides of the spectrum...

The 450nm is a single mode that RHD built. Here it is on the Laser Bee A at 184mW



And here it is on the Ophir head



61.4mV x 3 = 184.2mW - ~2mW for the zeroing? = 182.2mW

Next I put the 660nm LPC-826 build on the Laser Bee A and got 324mW



I have actually tested that laser before and gotten 319mW on a different day, so that is pretty consistent.

On the Ophir head it got...



107.4mV x 3 = 322.2mW - ~2mW = 320mW

I don't know for sure if I am supposed to be subtracting the 2mW in an effort to zero the output, or if it would need to be zeroed at the input to be correct.

No matter how you add it up though, the Ophir and Laser Bee A are very much in sync with each other with both frequencies and at this power.

I don't know if it matters to test green and to test a higher output - I have a ~425 mW green I can test tomorrow if you think it matters.

Obviously I am pretty happy with the results. Now I just have to come up with a nice package for it. Or not...

Your readings are accurate enough...
Just remove whatever you read before placing a Laser
on the Sensor from the final reading.

BTW... do not touch the outside of the OPHIR head with
your fingers.... it will skew the readings until the head
acclimates to the ambient air temp....

And if your head has the same characteristics as the
OPHIR 20C heads you need to let the head electronically
stabalize for 15 minutes after powering it on before
taking any Laser power readings.


Jerry