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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Please recommend a continuous (True CW) use handheld w/ zoom

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Oct 1, 2015
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Being my 1st post I say hello to all of you.

Please recommend a continuous (True CW) use hand held Apx 1 to 3/4" diameter to replace the "Old 5mW HeNe".

My company's product quality is based on mechanical alignment. We use on any given day maybe 12 old HeNe 5 mW lasers that are slowly fading. The cost of a new one was over $1K. As compared to what a laser diode is priced, I believe it's time for me to seriously investigate a replacement.

So this is what the project entails:

1) CW operation (continuous).
2) 5mW +/- single red beam. TEM00 not required
3) Zoom-able will be a feature to control the beam expansion with the focus at 20 inches Apx.

So some Mods will have to be done, such as a dummy battery to wire the exterior, maybe variable voltage power supply into. Maybe an aperture to deflect any "satellites", stray radiation. For sure a dual bulkhead and bed to integrate the new Assy into the existing optical bench. The far field beam path is about 40 inches total and the potential zoom-able feature on some of these hand helds will be very useful to control the beam expansion that even now with the HeNe, we fight. These will be left on most of the time, perhaps I can request they be turned off when not in use, however just don't want to be inventing another maintenance headache IF they get left on all day.

From an old white laser engineer, thanks in advance for your expert opinion! -Doug
 
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Hi MaicoDoug :wave:

Welcome to the forum Doug.
Where are you from as that can determine if certain things can be sent to you or not?
If you are going to hook it up to an external power source, why not get a lab laser as they are externally powered and made to be used for many hours. Does it have to be only 1 to 3/4 inches?
Of course a low powered 5mW hand held with the right heat sink can do that also.
Not to sound mean or rude but with all your experience with lasers it seems as if you could build exactly what you need in your sleep.
This might help and other members might know of an exact model that will work for you.
http://laserpointerforums.com/f51/i-want-build-laser-thread-52972.html
Good luck with your endeavor!
 
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Thanks Laser Chick for the links.

I was planning on the CCS (Constant Current Source) that I'll do w/ a TO-220 LM350 or 317.

Yes I didn't want to spend allot of $$ on this. The colimator (Zoom) alone would cost more than what I'm up against now, not to mention a decent lab grade coherent red source. So that's why I'm here...to find out what a decent quality larger diameter hand held, zoom-able red pointer for my alignment project would look like.

I'm located in the US, Texas (Silicon Valley Transplant).

Size could be 3/4" to 1 " plus or minus. Something I can place some bulkheads around with 3 screws at 120° for alignment. Not even rail mounted.

From the links posted, it will be comforting to review. I would like to at least purchase something w/ a zoom & see if these newly available & inexpensive solutions to how we retro-reflect our surfaces of interest onto targets under alignment will work, and perhaps after that look into the CCS & Heatsinking issues. I have looked briefly into the possibility of some cheap bench/lab grade zoomable coherent sources, but have not found much...yet/

I could do this in my sleep? That may explain why I should get more sleep then, yes!

Acknowledgement is worth it's weight in gold ions, thanks laser chick.
 

diachi

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Why don't you use something like this?

650nm 5mW 3.2VDC 12 x30mm, AixiZ

That's focusable, 5mW, and will quite happily run all day with a small heatsink. It's smaller than what you need, but you could find a heatsink that fits your size requirements and mount it in that.
 
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Thanks diachi,

I have always been a gas laser guy. The link you provided may work just fine. So much of the stuff out there is no longer available.

One thing I realized is that the focused area (near field) will then project a larger spot in far field, so I have to re-think this beam divergence issue. One design may well be having two sources each focused at the distance required starting off with a corner cube. Interesting to consider two different colored beams now basically because of the way the two reflections will always be (hopefully) be overlapping.

Well it's been great & thanks for your valuable input.

**Everyone please be careful with lasers because it's like playing around with the wrong end of a machine gun**

Doug
 
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diachi

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Thanks diachi,

I have always been a gas laser guy. The link you provided may work just fine. So much of the stuff out there is no longer available.

One thing I realized is that the focused area (near field) will then project a larger spot in far field, so I have to re-think this beam divergence issue. One design may well be having two sources each focused at the distance required starting off with a corner cube. Interesting to consider two different colored beams now basically because of the way the two reflections will always be (hopefully) be overlapping.

Well it's been great & thanks for your valuable input.

**Everyone please be careful with lasers because it's like playing around with the wrong end of a machine gun**

Doug

Doug,

Much prefer gas myself! ;) Glad I could help - hope it works out for you. At least with this option it won't be a huge expense if it doesn't work out.

Thanks for adding your safety message at the end - it's nice to see a new user to the forum who already understands the importance of safety! :D
 
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Also, just though I'd throw it in:

Diodes have inferior beam quality to HeNes. So depending on how precise it needs to be, you might also want to also invest in some beam correction optics like an anamorphic prism pair.
 
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Being my 1st post I say hello to all of you.

Please recommend a continuous (True CW) use hand held Apx 1 to 3/4" diameter to replace the "Old 5mW HeNe".

My company's product quality is based on mechanical alignment. We use on any given day maybe 12 old HeNe 5 mW lasers that are slowly fading. The cost of a new one was over $1K. As compared to what a laser diode is priced, I believe it's time for me to seriously investigate a replacement.

So this is what the project entails:

1) CW operation (continuous).
2) 5mW +/- single red beam. TEM00 not required
3) Zoom-able will be a feature to control the beam expansion with the focus at 20 inches Apx.

So some Mods will have to be done, such as a dummy battery to wire the exterior, maybe variable voltage power supply into. Maybe an aperture to deflect any "satellites", stray radiation. For sure a dual bulkhead and bed to integrate the new Assy into the existing optical bench. The far field beam path is about 40 inches total and the potential zoom-able feature on some of these hand helds will be very useful to control the beam expansion that even now with the HeNe, we fight. These will be left on most of the time, perhaps I can request they be turned off when not in use, however just don't want to be inventing another maintenance headache IF they get left on all day.

From an old white laser engineer, thanks in advance for your expert opinion! -Doug

If you need new HeNes, you can generally buy small surplus ones for less than 100 bucks from various locations. what model(s) are you looking for. I'll give the local area a call and see what they have. If you want a diode laser, lots of places sell cheap modules. I got a number from Power Technologies a while back that are good enough for virtually anything for a cheap price. They have circular modules all the way from instrument quality stuff, to just a diode in a module with no fuss no muss. If you need to do alignment, HeNes are still not a bad option, but if you're looking for something more compact and low power, you might give them a call and inquire. We recently got a circularized module for making holograms not too long ago, and it does a great job for around 500 bucks, which is the cheapest laser of necessary stability i've found anywhere. and they'll still be circular, so serious remodeling of your application wouldn't be required most likely.
 
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Pman

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I would HIGHLY recommend you take Ult up on his offer;)
Welcome to the forum.
 

diachi

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Also, just though I'd throw it in:

Diodes have inferior beam quality to HeNes. So depending on how precise it needs to be, you might also want to also invest in some beam correction optics like an anamorphic prism pair.


Prism pair will be no good for the diodes I linked as they will be single mode and have a roughly round beam as is. For higher power multimode diodes you'd be correct! Still won't have the same beam quality as HeNe, that's for sure. You'd need to spend good money on a diode or go OPSL/DPSS to get that kind of quality from something solid state.
 
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Just depends on the diode. Some have micro lens corrections inside them, but in principle even SM diodes have an elliptical beam, and this is usually corrected using aspherical lenses and anamorphic prisms in almost every lab quality diode laser I've ever seen. (Excluding CNI because they make them both ways upon request) They're just not -as- elliptical due to the smaller emitter size. The only exception would be a VECSL diode, and even those are sometimes still not perfectly circular.
 




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