- Joined
- Sep 12, 2007
- Messages
- 9,399
- Points
- 113
Shipping:
The XDL-868 came in 9 business days from Hong Kong. It was encased in a rather typical white foam pointer case which read "stage lighting."
Mechanical:
It is made of (rather flimsy) plastic, not aluminum. All three of the tact switches require a lot of pressure to work. Because it is recessed behind the case, the battery is difficult to remove, and often requires another object to pry it out. The compass on the end fell off in a few minutes, probably because it was held in place by a hand-cut piece of scrap cardboard and glue. There is a bubble in the compass that sometimes prevents the spindle from turning. The brass ring you see on the front end in the ebay photo is not the green module as you might expect. It is set into the plastic head. It has threads on the inside suggesting you may be able to get diffraction heads for it. The soldering was rather poor. A wire and an inductor snapped when I took it apart and I needed to rewind the inductor. I lost a half-turn, but it still works the same. The solder on the spring was almost nonexistent, and the spring could have come out at any time:
Electrical:
The green has some separate circuitry from the red and violet - It has its own inductor. The switching frequency is about 70kHz for the green, and about 250kHz for the violet and red. The red seems to be pulsed at about 700Hz while the other two are CW. Here is a plot of the current draw as a function of input voltage. As you can see, the red is the only one that has good regulation.
Laser Output:
With the included battery, powers on red, green, and violet are 1, 5, and 28mW respectively.
Initial beam diameters are 3, 1.5, and 3mm respectively.
Divergence (measured at 8m) is 0.79, 0.66, and 1.05mRad respectively.
Wavelengths are 407, 532*, and 653nm respectively.
The violet is a case-negative TO-56, and the red is a PCB-mounted die. Here is the internal assembly (after inductor repair). Note the 0Ω resistor
:
Here is a plot of output power as a function of input voltage. Again we see the red is the only one with any decent regulation.
All three can NOT be in operation at the same time - not with the included battery, or other alkalines I tried anyway. They fight for the limited battery current, and the violet usually wins. However, with a e² lithium or external power supply, this is possible. Output at 1.5V, and yes, the green really did look that bad in person before I cleaned it :scowl::
At 1.3V:
And at 1.1V. The IR is <5mW:
Beam profiles. The red on the left is drowned out, but looks just like the violet.
When I had it on the spectrograph, I noticed a blip (or two) that shouldn't be there.
I confirmed it with a diffraction grating, and sure enough, two lines (maybe three):
Some of you may remember this has happened to me before here. These lines are closer together. :undecided: That other pointer is no longer outputting the extra lines, by the way. :cryyy:
Anywho, I'd probably give this a 3/10. :tired:
The XDL-868 came in 9 business days from Hong Kong. It was encased in a rather typical white foam pointer case which read "stage lighting."
Mechanical:
It is made of (rather flimsy) plastic, not aluminum. All three of the tact switches require a lot of pressure to work. Because it is recessed behind the case, the battery is difficult to remove, and often requires another object to pry it out. The compass on the end fell off in a few minutes, probably because it was held in place by a hand-cut piece of scrap cardboard and glue. There is a bubble in the compass that sometimes prevents the spindle from turning. The brass ring you see on the front end in the ebay photo is not the green module as you might expect. It is set into the plastic head. It has threads on the inside suggesting you may be able to get diffraction heads for it. The soldering was rather poor. A wire and an inductor snapped when I took it apart and I needed to rewind the inductor. I lost a half-turn, but it still works the same. The solder on the spring was almost nonexistent, and the spring could have come out at any time:
Electrical:
The green has some separate circuitry from the red and violet - It has its own inductor. The switching frequency is about 70kHz for the green, and about 250kHz for the violet and red. The red seems to be pulsed at about 700Hz while the other two are CW. Here is a plot of the current draw as a function of input voltage. As you can see, the red is the only one that has good regulation.
Laser Output:
With the included battery, powers on red, green, and violet are 1, 5, and 28mW respectively.
Initial beam diameters are 3, 1.5, and 3mm respectively.
Divergence (measured at 8m) is 0.79, 0.66, and 1.05mRad respectively.
Wavelengths are 407, 532*, and 653nm respectively.
The violet is a case-negative TO-56, and the red is a PCB-mounted die. Here is the internal assembly (after inductor repair). Note the 0Ω resistor
:Here is a plot of output power as a function of input voltage. Again we see the red is the only one with any decent regulation.
All three can NOT be in operation at the same time - not with the included battery, or other alkalines I tried anyway. They fight for the limited battery current, and the violet usually wins. However, with a e² lithium or external power supply, this is possible. Output at 1.5V, and yes, the green really did look that bad in person before I cleaned it :scowl::
At 1.3V:
And at 1.1V. The IR is <5mW:
Beam profiles. The red on the left is drowned out, but looks just like the violet.
When I had it on the spectrograph, I noticed a blip (or two) that shouldn't be there.
I confirmed it with a diffraction grating, and sure enough, two lines (maybe three):
Some of you may remember this has happened to me before here. These lines are closer together. :undecided: That other pointer is no longer outputting the extra lines, by the way. :cryyy:
Anywho, I'd probably give this a 3/10. :tired:
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