Hello!
I am a musician/ constant tinkerer wanting to put together my first laser light show. I plan to build a Lumia, difractor, and a motiondizer ( out of MAKE issue 20) I understand the basic principals of electricty, and the dangers of playing with lasers and all that jazz. My question is about laser power out put. I want to get the most bang for my buck. I plan on using cheap pointers off the internet, green, red and violet. I plan on having my "shows" if you can call them that at house parties and possibly small clubs to go along with the music, so I need the lasers to cut through fog from a fog machine, yet not be so powerful that they will bounce out of a window or something shiny and blind some one. my other concern is keeping the lasers from burning up, I want to be able to keep them going for a couple of hours. The 5mW lasers are cheap, but are they powerful enough to do what I want them too? since they are low power do I have to worry about cooling them? how about the 10mW lasers? they would probly look better for what I want, but how do I keep them from burning up?

Thanks
Jitup

For light shows, the best approach to take for longevity is to use what we call "labbies" or "brick lasers"

They are mounted in a thick chunk of finned aluminum to keep it from overheating during long run duty cycles.

Aixiz laser has these nice units cheap...


Picture uploading now (FTP problems...I'll get that up)

Anyhow Aixiz has a 15 mw aluminum module that will not burn out like a pointer will.

Some of the guys on here machine (offer for sale) heat sink blocks already bored out so you can make high duty cycle lasers affordable.


And welcome...

Check the laser show section for lots of good info on building laser shows. Also, the forum at photonlexicon.com is dedicated almost entirely to professional laser shows and the people that build and run them.

You've asked some good questions, but they are also a bit complex.. search around a bit, you shouldn't have much trouble finding some answers. If you can't find the info you seek in the two places above, try Home Page - www.LaserFX.com or Laser Man - Home

is this the module that you mentioned?
AixiZ
What color is it? green?
it is$40, which I guess isnt too much, but I would like to try and spend the least amount possible. Is anything less going to be junk? like cheap ebay lab lasers?
thanks

There is an old saying, get what you pay for.

Yes that is the laser, and $40 is super cheap, it ships from the USA (Texas) is tested and fully backed. it's a killer green.

if you bought a cheap $20 green pointer and taped down the button, it will work, but in a few minutes, the laser stability will wander, it will heat up and start to fail.

Not to mention gobbling up batteries frequently.

Look up red modules there too, but violet is still expensive there, build one.

Point is, you can hardly build a high quality green show laser for that $40

Cheap pointers will fail and do you want an audience when that happens??

You are a musician, would you take a plastic barbi guitar to a gig? or a fisher price keyboard and elmo drum kit?

thanks for the link, I think I am going to order that unit. dose it come with a powersupply? how do get it juice? is 15mW enogh power to cut through some thick fog?
Thanks for the help so far. I think I will build one unit at a time with better lasers than all of them at once and have all 5 fail on the first gig! do you own that unit?

In a small confined party, 15 mw with fog will be impressive.

The laser comes with a PC board, the PC board simply requires 5 volts DC to run, so any small transformer / charger charger with a 5 volt DC label will run it just fine.

Nice thing about this is it has a TTL blanking input, so as your show evolves you can add modulation with a quick connector.




There is no soldering required, and you can house that PC board in anything, like a radio shack project box.

thanks,
you said that there was a red module like this? I did a google search and checked that site, but could only find that green one. can to please direct me to a suiteable like if you know of one?

Thanks

Almost anyone here can tell you that I'm a huge fan of trying to see how much I can do for the least amount of $$, but if you are quibbling over $40, building a true laser projector is probably not a good idea.

Also, if you are in the US, ANY laser projector over 5mW requires a variance from the FDA to be used legally in public.

The rule is, buy the best laser (stable, powerful) you can afford, even if it means taking a little while to save up. Right now on ebay there is a sweet deal on 150mW TEC stabilized modules for $99US plus shipping. I highly recommend getting something in this power range as the bare minimum for a projector, and being TEC stabilized will be very helpful in terms of output power stability.

Here's a link: Green L.a.s.e.r 150MW Diode DPSS Module + Power Supply - eBay (item 320448703817 end time Feb-11-10 16:47:36 PST)

You will also need a galvo set. The cheapest source I know of currently for them is from Laser show - Beam show - Animation show - Scanner systems - DJ Light - Disco Light - SpaceLas Co. Ltd.. They sell a 20k set for $88US plus shipping. The nearest competitor sells for $145 Plus shipping. The spaceles galvos are decent, but not top notch.. a good starting point.

thanks for all the info, but I'm not trying to build a scanner. I am trying to achive like a dj lighting sort of thing. pictures are better than words so please check out the link below.

makezine.com: Lunchbox Laser Shows

This is what I am trying to achive. acording to the article they used 5 mW laser pointers, and one 20mW green that they disected and built power supply for. for the 20mW they used, I figured I would order the 15mW unit mentioned above, so i didnt have to wory about burning it up. how would I keep the other lases from burning up? is 5mW enough to cut through fog?
thanks for all the help so far.

Well, assuming you are using diode lasers and not some behemoth Argon laser you should not have a problem with cooling. Low power lasers don't generally generate a lot of heat.
I would suggest maybe upping the power to 40mW. The green lasers (523nM) do have a duty cycle but using a proper heat sink it should be ok.

With proper air flow/ muffin fan you should be fine to do your project