B&W-tech Spectrometer & 473 module: Setup+Mods+Info

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

I was thinking and my conclusion is that the spectro is meant to read back the raman fluorescence of the target, not to wavelength tune the laser. That might be why it has no baffles and a larger range.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

The spectrometer is linked directly to the output of the laser through a dichro inside the output collimator of the laser. I don't know if these are somehow limited in bandwidth, but I have been told this by others who had been working with them before I ever saw one. The more sources you have outside the 473nm range to test, the better your test of the range will be. HeNes and argons and DPSSLs are all good sources for testing. But, even a 650nm or 660nm direct diode laser will give you an idea how well it can read outside the laser's WL. You wouldn't be able to use them for calibration, but if you have a HeCd and/or multi line argon, these could be used. Also the discharge light from a HeNe could be used if you know the major spectral lines.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

CynicalBrad said:

Pm me and I can send you an email with the software and documentation in a few hours when I get off work.

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Will rebuild my e-mail server and get back to you... The VM host died the other day and I haven't got around to fixing it...

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

diachi said:

Will rebuild my e-mail server and get back to you... The VM host died the other day and I haven't got around to fixing it...

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You have a PM with a dropbox link with the files as well as my temp placeholder image in a zip archive.


The promised news. The spectro reads but is in some serious need of calibration. my "520" is reading as 589... and yet is not sodium transition amber..
my 477 diode is reading 557.
my spartan "635" is reading 580
seems that a wide range is reading as a rather narrow one to me.
DPSS 473 is reading as 554 so at least the gap between known 473 and my 477 seems about right since I am not pushing the diode hard.

Will have to wait on some input from those more knowledgeable from here on out.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

CynicalBrad said:

You have a PM with a dropbox link with the files as well as my temp placeholder image in a zip archive.

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Excellent, thanks! Got it, opens up just fine on Windows 10.

Edit:

Quickly came up with a more suitable background image, see attached. Not perfect, but it works.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

I thought the output collimator had a prism inside as the image put through is inverted, but it is a dichro on a glass slide. Interesting that it works this way. Figured out that it was the lens causing the inversion. Oops. Oh well. I should know better than to assume something by now. :/

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

paul1598419 said:

I thought the output collimator had a prism inside as the image put through is inverted, but it is a dichro on a glass slide. Interesting that it works this way. Figured out that it was the lens causing the inversion. Oops. Oh well. I should know better than to assume something by now. :/

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Tsk tsk!

I feel bad for not contributing when you guys are figuring all this stuff out.

Mine won't be here for another week or two.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Just think how much you will benefit from the work being done now. I wasn't really interested in the laser part right now as the spectro is what everyone is salivating over. Since I don't have the Rs232 converter yet, it gave me time to look at some other aspects of this laser.

BTW, what did it cost you to ship it to the north pole?

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

paul1598419 said:

Just think how much you will benefit from the work being done now. I wasn't really interested in the laser part right now as the spectro is what everyone is salivating over. Since I don't have the Rs232 converter yet, it gave me time to look at some other aspects of this laser.

BTW, what did it cost you to ship it to the north pole?

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Yeah, hopefully I'll be able to get up and running pretty much as soon as mine arrives.

The way I'm looking at it is, if the spectro doesn't work at least I got a 473nm laser out of it, not why I bought it, but at least it's an added bonus. Maybe these 473s with the pump correction will have better output beams, even if uncollimated. The last one I bought had a nasty beam. If the spectro works then even better!

Hah, north pole. Not quite, thankfully. I'd probably off myself due to lack of sunlight in the winter if I were that far north, winter is already dark enough here... Got another 27.5° latitude to go before the pole! Anyway, it was $38.88CAD for shipping. Not terrible as far as shipping to Yellowknife goes. I've seen people wanting >$20 shipping on single ICs that cost $2. No way it costs that much to ship an IC to here.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Oh, that's not too bad at all. Alaskan was keeping away from these because they wanted $68.00 for shipping to Anchorage. I thought it would be at least that much to get it to you.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

paul1598419 said:

Oh, that's not too bad at all. Alaskan was keeping away from these because they wanted $68.00 for shipping to Anchorage. I thought it would be at least that much to get it to you.

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Is that $68USD? Surprised it's so much more expensive to Anchorage.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

diachi said:

Is that $68USD? Surprised it's so much more expensive to Anchorage.

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Yup!

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Alaskan said:

I emailed the fellow the seller said would send me the software, but nothing back from him yet, might need to get it from one of you guys.

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Here you go. Might as well just post this here so I don't have to keep sending it via PM. Hopefully we can get some work done on calibrating these things. I wouldn't even know where to begin to do any sort of calibration with the included software.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Alaskan said:

I was able to get the seller to agree to ship for "free" if I bought five of them at a time, which I did. So the shipment coming to Paul, as well as the shipments to me in Alaska and Iraq were also sent to me for 199 USD with free shipping. My assumption is they were not selling many at such a high shipping rate and it was worth it to them to start selling them in bulk. I believe they are selling them much faster now, well..... partly because I've been their best customer in awhile having purchased a large number of them..

I'm very happy to see a few members moving forward at getting both the DPSS units and the spectrometer working, at this rate, sharing what you have found will make my getting them working a snap - I emailed the fellow the seller said would send me the software, but nothing back from him yet, might need to get it from one of you guys.

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That's not so bad then!

Is it the same software that we have just now? The software Brad sent me is very minimal. It'll do the job but it's very basic. I could probably write that software in a few hours and I'm not much of a programmer. It's only 40KB in size.

As for the 473 DPSS, I've had one of them before and there's plenty of information out there on them already so getting that going isn't particularly difficult, last time was a breeze, hardest part was making the connector and I used an avionics DB9 connector, where you have to insert the pins manually with a special tool.



All you really need is the power connector pinout and a DB9 connector, can't remember if it's male or female, but pretty straight forward either way.

The crystal set is one "unit", aligned from the factory, same as any CNI lab lasers us hobby folk have had so alignment is fairly straightforward too. My 500mW 532nm from CNI had pretty much the exact same setup as the B&W 473s, there really isn't much to them.



The Vanadate/LBO/Mirrors are all contained within that plastic housing, aligned from the factory. There should be no need to adjust the alignment of those components, you should only ever need to adjust the whole housing to align with the pump beam. If you need to do more than that then the laser has had a pretty rough life.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Yep, that is the same software I received from the seller and sent both you and another member. Figured I would make it a little easier to find vs having to PM all over for it.

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

I haven't loaded it yet as I can't use it until I get the RS232 converter. Sounds a little sparse for the BWSpec software. Will need it to calibrate these as you need to be able to link a pixel number to a specific spectral line. Should use at least six lines, but eight is better. Once that is done, you need to solve for a third order regression to obtain the four variables needed to plug into the spectro's memory. That is how my Ocean Optics spectro was calibrated.