Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea! :-)

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

TEC power on the go may drain the batts VERY quickly.

I was thinking (once I get the setup right) to rip out the innards of a maglite 3/4/5/6 D cell (whatever size I need) throw in some CR123a's for the circuits. Then get some aluminium bar and mill accurately pockets just the right size for the modules, so I have in effect 1 huge heatsink - I can't wait to try out a good duty cycle!

About the circuit - do you think parallel is the best option? e.g. 2x CR123's connected to a PCB and 7 pots on it or LM317 (or whatever) to allow individual control of each module?!?!

I think this will be all done by Christmas! (well that's my realistic aim) I'll have to wait now for several weeks for my LD's. :-/


Dan

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

I'd say, each diode gets its own LM317, but they are all fed from one big Powersource (batteries).

If you use a 6D-Maglite, I'd use the 6D's - enough voltage, and niiiice capacities!!!

You can run a TEC quite some time off that one


"and it burns Burns BURNS, the laser of fire, the laser of fire, OH YEAH IT BURNS!!!"

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

Yeah - I'm probably going to get a large D cell maglite, and loose 2 of the cells to fit all this in.
The 6D cell is 50cm long!!!!

I'll start off by keeping it simple, then move onto more wonder things like TEC's, blue/red combined, so we can get a portable blue burner! or an electronic autofocus, with a little motor or something!........

* On a side note, I've done some work with TEC's before and when I was researching them I saw some TEC's that were made with holes in, so fit circular components. I'll see if I can digg out the link incase anyone is interested. *

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

Although it looks interesting, I don't believe the conical mirror would be very effective.

To get the sources to converge on the same point, they would have to be right at the tip of the cone. Since the radius is so small at the tip, the curvature will be very great, even for a very small beam diameter. This would tend to greatly diverge the beam instead of simply redirecting it. A pyramid shaped first surface reflector would likely be more effective (or another multi-sided relector with flat surfaces).

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

chimo said:

Although it looks interesting, I don't believe the conical mirror would be very effective.

To get the sources to converge on the same point, they would have to be right at the tip of the cone. Since the radius is so small at the tip, the curvature will be very great, even for a very small beam diameter. This would tend to greatly diverge the beam instead of simply redirecting it. A pyramid shaped first surface reflector would likely be more effective (or another multi-sided relector with flat surfaces).

Click to expand...

I agree, any time you bounce a laser off a mirror with a negative focal length it will diverge. And with a small radius like near the tip of a cone, the focal length will be a small negative distance hence a large divergence.
But I'd be very interested if someone managed to make a pyramid as you described! It just might be able to work. ;D

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

It is being worked on as we speak

Regards rog8811

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

I've thought about this (using a plano lens) for something like a DIY laser etcher. You'd have to combine alot of the GB diodes to get the power needed lol. But the ideas I had are basically the same as what you are coming up with. It should be possible to use two lenses to get the beams to converge on a point and then send them forwards as a single beam. It may not be perfect, and you may need a small system of collminating (sp?) lenes to get a decent beam. As for the power, am I right in asuming that the power will drop because of distortion, etc? So it may come out at around a watt for 6 diodes?

Scale the idea up to a non-portable system, could you have 6 groups of 6 diodes so that each group creates a beam that are then combined together to push 6 watts? Hell, try 6 groups of 12 diodes and you could be pushing 12 watts. Everything would have to be TEC cooled and it would draw a fair amount of power haha. But, awesome none the less if its possible.

Of course, another application would be creating your own RGB lasers. A plano lens shouldn't care about wave length. I think you get where thats going...

Anyway, just throwing more ideas into the ether!

Medd

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

@ meddigo All ideas welcome

Experiment No:1 90 deg polished cone made, a focused beam directed at it is cr*p (as some of you had already worked out).
On the other hand a 5mw, unfocused red out of an Aixiz housing pointed at it has a lot of promise as I could get all of the light to throw foreward by aligning the bar shaped output of the LD up the length of the cone.

This gives me some hope as I feel that it will be possible to arrange more LD's around the cone (at 90 deg's to it) than could be bunched together in the same footprint of the base of the cone facing forward.....if that makes sense to you

Regards rog8811

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

I *love* the idea of the RGB laser. Why didn't I think of that!!!

I'll start with some reds, to get the lens assembly working, then I'll try condensing it, then I'll start work on the RGB beast!

Could I make a control circuit, with say 3 pots and make any colour possible?????
I hope that *might* work but I doubt it's as easy as just shining different ammounts R G or B, don't you need to change the wavelength or something using 2 right angles prisms???

Anyway..... Nice colours can wait a few months, I need SUPER power!!!

I'm going to setup a test rig with the lens' and modules - but I'm going to use the stock Aixiz 5mw diode, purely for safety reasons, as I'll have my hands in the way fiddeling + a bit of diagnostic smoke spray for beam callibration. Also I assume the 5mw stock Aixiz have an unlimited duty cycle?!? So I would save time there + no need for a circuit to start off with. Then if I get it working, swap out the 5mW for 200mW!!!!


Dan

* Edit *
@ Rog: Argghh! It's a shame that didn't work out. I was looking forward to that. Could you post some pics? Also, how did you get the lens to the right shape? + where did you get it from?

I really want to get started with this project - but I need to wait for a few weeks for the parts.

Dan

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

Well, different colours would be possible. Still, maybe not easy if you have e.g. sveral red diodes, each with ist own circuit, to control all of them with one pot.


RGB at all might work, but as the red beam will pass through the first lens with a different angle than the blue/green one, you might have to get some adjustment work to be done there. Nothing too huge though. Basically only a parralel shift of the module towards the center (hard to explain)

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

That's what I mean.




and don't hit me because it is MS paint, but recently formattet pc has nothing diff. installed yet.

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

another problem with the rgb idea is different wavelengths have different focal lengths. So not only are you going to be trying to focus 3 beams to the same place your going to be trying to focus three wavelengths at different distances. it's called chromatic focus I believe

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

might consider mixing your "reinforced" monocolor beams with a prism...


Oh, and it's called chromatic abberation. Smartly placed lenses with smartly chosen focal lengths can cancel that out, used in objectives used for projections, for example.

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

The death star lives!

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

Fortunately as it was not focused the 500000000mw of power did not vapourise me

Re: Hex DIY Red Laser - The ULTIMATE burner idea!

All I had to put in this to try were 3 <5mw's out of Aixiz modules so I won't be incinerating anything soon. Anyone want to donate a few more modules to fill the gaps?