Newbie looking for advice.

[xupz]

Hey everyone, I could really use a tap into some experience here on the forum.

I'm currently an EE student working on a senior design team. We're going to build a digital laser projector, full RGB. Everything is being done from scratch except the lasers and optics. We currently have a $1500 budget for the lasers themselves.

The problem has been sourcing some lab style lasers capable of analog modulation, 0-5V, but I'm willing to use any laser module that will allow analog modulation. The current selections are:

Green 80mW 532nm $170.00
CNI 30K 532nm 80mw Green Laser Diode W/ Power Supply -

Red 100mW 635nm $317.00
CNI 30K 100mw 635nm Red Laser Diode W/ Power Supply -

Blue 80mW 473nm $668.00
CNI 30K 473nm 80mw Blue Laser Diode W/ FDA Power Supply -

Dichroic Filter Kit $150.00
https://www.ctlasers.com/purchases/dichroic-filter-p-54.html

According to a Matlab program I found on the forum, Chroma (excellent job btw), this selection would give me a solid white laser beam combination at these powers and any number of lower power combinations:

473 80mW
635 87mW
532 50mW

I was hoping some on the forum could offer some advice on the selections made and/or possibly recommend a US source with comparable prices for lasers. From the research we've done so far it appears CNI lasers seem to be best bang for the buck so that's why I selected the ones from that online store. I am however concerned with the time to order and possible customs issues, we only have approximately 3 1/2 months to work on the system.

We are not interested in following ILDA format, both software and hardware will be designed using our own format.

Any advice/help/recommendations is much appreciated.

 

[xupz]

:bumpit:

Anyone? Bueller?

 

[Flaminpyro]

Why don't you PM ElektroFreak he's realy into projectors and I hear over at PhotoLexacon they are also into that.

 

[xupz]

Why don't you PM ElektroFreak he's realy into projectors and I hear over at PhotoLexacon they are also into that.

Ok thanks, I'll try the other forum you mentioned.

 

[Cyparagon]

Not the best idea on the blue. You can save several hundred dollars and dodectuple your power if you use 445nm diodes. Also, combining 2 660nm diodes would be brighter and cheaper than 100mW of 635nm. With all the money you save on those two, you can get a bigger green and/or red.

I use that dichro kit and it is great.

You still need to select a set of scanners.

 

[xupz]

Not the best idea on the blue. You can save several hundred dollars and dodectuple your power if you use 445nm diodes. Also, combining 2 660nm diodes would be brighter and cheaper than 100mW of 635nm. With all the money you save on those two, you can get a bigger green and/or red.

I use that dichro kit and it is great.

You still need to select a set of scanners.

Thanks for the reply. We're trying to keep the max power down to 100mW and lower, so we don't really need higher power for the 445 nm diodes. We selected 473 nm for blue based on all the research we've done.

As for the red, I see that the ~660nm diodes are much cheaper, but they're the deeper cherry red on the spectrum which means they would require > 150 mW minimum to produce a good white balance with the 473 and 532 below 100mW.

Is there any other advantage to using the ~660 nm reds vs the 635 nm reds, that is other than cost?