My Aurora C6 with LPC-826, Copper Heatsink and 1085 DIY Driver

Odd.

I have a Survival Lasers R, 660nm, rated 300mw, and I have a 650-G-1 lens on it. It should be putting out between, say, 350mw and 380mw or so.

I COULD NOT get it to burn WHITE paper (notebook paper) or white paper-towel material.

I tried yellow paper (PostIt Note); it would NOT burn it.

I got a piece of thin white cardboard (VERY thin); packaging material. It would NOT burn the white part. But there is printing on the cardboard... dark blue, and a light silvery gray (I would call it "moderate to very light gray"). The laser WOULD burn the cardboard wherever there was printing (regardless of color). It burned the light gray printing suprisingly fast. But NOT the white part.

For the picture I burned white sticky notes. No recycling paper, just ordinary plain white paper with nothing on it. How fine can you focus the dot? I don't own a 650-G-1 lens and don't know about its focusing characteristics. Maybe the lens loss is less but the focusing is worse than my three element glass lens?
I tested the laser without the lens and the LaserBee showed 280mW. But I could not get the entire dot on the sensor so the actual output should be higher.

That's probably it then.

I'm still relatively new at this, but I think that the general consensus on G-1 lenses is that *in general* they are better for burning... but maybe a 3-element lens can make a smaller spot.

The 650-G-1 has less loss compared to a three element glass lens. IIRC, then it has only one coated glass element and not three. So it is propably the best choice for max power output, hence the hefty price. But, as I said before, I don't know how precise its focus is. The smaller the dot, the higher the energy density, the better the burning.

Nice creativity! Thats a great setup with the regulator on the pill (too bad I drilled mine out) But you should reverse it so the metal on the regulator is on the aluminum pill instead of the plastic and add thermal paste. Also, when you have everything how you want it and no longer intend to open up the host, put some thermal paste between the heatsink and the host. I did that on my 1W blue and it pretty much doubles the duty cycle, and if not, at least you can immediately fell when it is getting warm.

If you want more power from that LPC-826, crank up the power to 480ma - 520ma as they can handle it unlike LPC-815. Depending on what you choose in that range, you can get about 300mW+

Hopefulyl I can sell my red build here. Going to be hard with no LPM to tell the power, but I know its at LEAST 200mW

Thanks for your comments.
I am still experimenting with the driver on this laser. Once I have found the perfect one for this laser I will exchange the driver and make the build "permanent" using thermal epoxy and some copper chunks as thermal mass.

From what I have read here and on other forums, I believe that for a true 300mW+ you not only need to increase the current but you would also need a good lens, like the 650-G-1. I like to keep the current within reasonable limits, so I think I will stay well below 500mA for this diode. Instead I plan on experimenting with lenses. I good a few lying around, waiting to get tested.

At which current did you set your driver and which lens are you using? I got a bunch of U-I graphs, just in case you want to look up how much mW you should be expecting based on your current setting and lens. Anyway, good luck with your sale!

Wow nice build!
I'm very interested in the driver you used, could you please give more detail about it and post a schematic if possible?
Thanks a lot!

rainmaker001 said:

Wow nice build!
I'm very interested in the driver you used, could you please give more detail about it and post a schematic if possible?
Thanks a lot!

Click to expand...

There's a thread about it here,

:beer: