Sony Laser Diode Guide - A serious guide for the care and feeding of laser diodes

Not sure if this has been posted here before, I just stumbled across it randomly while browsing Sam's FAQ. This is a technical guide to the treatment of laser diodes. Includes a host of schematics and calculations for APC/ACC circuits, TEC controllers, guidelines for handling and mounting, etc. This guide was intended for pros, but is enormously helpful to hobbyists who want to get the most from their diodes.

SONY Laser Diode Guide

EF,

Check your link....

Glenn

Weird.. lemme retry that. Tnx for telling me lol..

EDIT: Should be good now.

I found this to be interesting,

Guidelines of Measures for Prevention of Injury by Laser Light Purpose

The guidelines are aimed at eliminating the possibility of injury to the workers who engage in laser device handling or services in which they might be exposed to laser light (referred to as laser-related work hereinafter)....(referred to as service workers).

Laser equipment classification....based on the degrees of the effects the laser equipment, categorized as defined in the accompanying sheet on the basis of the radiation exposure limits corresponding to the wavelengths and durations of laser light generated by the laser devices, cause on the human body. The meaning of each of the classes is defined below.

Class 1 : Laser equipment with a low output (approximately 0.39μw or less) which does not cause any injury to the human body.

Class 2 : Laser equipment with an output of such level of visible light (400 to 700nm in wavelength) that enables the defensive reaction of the human body to avert injury (approximately 1mW).

Class 3A : Laser equipment with an output which makes direct observation of the beam by optical means dangerous and which is less than five times the output of class 2 (approximately 5mW or less).

Class 3B : Laser equipment with an output that can cause eye injury if exposed to directly but which does not cause eye injury if exposed to diffused reflected (approximately 0.5W or less).

Class 4 : Laser equipment with an output which can cause eye injury even if exposed to diffused and reflected beam (approximately more than 0.5W) Note) 1W=103mW=106μW

That is somewhat reassuring...

ts

Remember, that is advice for a controlled environment. At 500mw a reflection off of any shiny surface can cause damage, and it only takes an instant. This includes windows, a glossy upc label, a watch, and any of hundreds of different things that can accidentally be in an uncontrolled environment.

You can take the difficult precaution of removing each and every object with even a tiny bit of shininess or you can simply equip everyone present with eye protection. The second option is not only far easier, but also far less prone to failure.

Very nice info..

They even drill down to the physics behind it..

Nice resource..

Downloaded and saved.. Thank you