90mw 520nm laser

I decided to shoot some pictures of my stainless steel 520nm hand-held. This laser uses an Osram PL520 driven by a 220mA survival laser driver which sadly doesn't boost voltage so two 3.7 batteries are needed otherwise it will output 20mW on 6v and 0.5mW on 3.7v. Here are some photos:

Low exposure shot
Very Interesting comparison to 532nm(520nm is on low power)

mmmmhh, only if I had a 556nm laser...

Beamshot

Here's what's interesting. Before I used a g-2 lens, I expected the divergence to be worse than a 3 element glass lens, but since this is single mode, the divergence is not affected at all. There also seems to be an artifact from it too.

got that line artifact on mine too. pretty sure it's normal. 90mW for 220mA is not bad at all, thanks for sharing

Same here. I eventually learned to ignore the line from my green laser. It's from the diode cavity sandwich (Gallium Nitride is pretty much transparent).

Here is a pro tip for ya: Use an acrylic lens with that build. The power is higher than with a G lens if I remember right, don't know why, but it is. Also the beam is much cleaner. MUCH cleaner. With a G lens you get a bunch of fuzzy bullshit off to the side of the dot. Plus artifacts. With an acrylic lens you don't. I prefer Acrylic for anything under 400-500mW. Above that the only reason I don't is because the lens will eventually melt.

PS - I love Stainless Builds. Awesome job man!

I like that host, I also have one (not my 520). I agree with IsaacT, I use an acrylic lens on my PL520 and I get a nice clean dot, when I first tried a 3 element it had a terrible amount of splash so I changed to an acrylic. My only complaint with the acrylic lens is that I have to screw it in almost all the way to the point I can't have the focus adapter screwed onto the lens far enough to use it for focusing.

Alan

For these single mode builds I always make them fixed focus by epoxying the lens in place. In doing this I get an AMAZING divergence. And why would I need to focus it anyway?

PS - this is my 5280th post. I am a mile high on LPF!

I have the same line artifact from my PL520. I think there must have been a revision to the design since the PL520 debuted - the diode in my Skylaser HL520 doesn't have the line artifact, rather it has the same "Osram square" as the PL450 did and apparently still does.

I think if I had it to do over, I'd go with the PLP520-B1 rather than the PL520. Oh well.

The PL520-B1 is one of my favorite diodes hands down! Amazing divergence, great power, and very few artifacts. And artifacts irritate me.

My PL520 has no line artifact, maybe I just got lucky or maybe it depends on what lens you use, the 3 element lens I first tried was terrible on that laser.

Alan

IsaacT said:

The PL520-B1 is one of my favorite diodes hands down! Amazing divergence, great power, and very few artifacts. And artifacts irritate me.

Click to expand...

Hi,

Which lens did you use with the 520-B1?

EDIT: Oops, should've searched more. The answer is in this thread http://laserpointerforums.com/f45/pl520-b1-build-ehgemus-custom-host-88425.html (acrylic lens)