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- Jun 7, 2012
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I have an affinity for everything GITD, so I took some of my strontium aluminate and epoxy and got to it. It was my first run at "tricking out" one of my hosts and I'm very please with the results.
Here's a short list of the GITD upgrades :yh:
1. Ring applied inside the gap between the focus ring and the lens holder. (With a steady hand this isn't too bad.)
2. Applied GITD to bottom of the module. (This was a pain, took very careful work and in the future I'm going to do this before the diode is inserted.)
3. For the middle I filled in the entire C3's middle gap. (This took several batches because it needed to be layered and also needed monitoring so it didn't slump.)
4. For the tail I inlaid rings in the host grooves similar to glow rings then put a haze glow over and between the rings. (Had to be done in steps since the host is small and it required taping.)
And after all that it turns out pretty nice with a permanent and strong GITD addition.
It's really worth having a GITD module, lenses have a magnifying effect on the diode that we normally cannot see unless there is light inside the module. This is a picture taken straight down the lens and with a quick switch of the laser the splash/aurora charges the strontium aluminate, then the diode can be closely inspected without ever removing the lens. (You can see here some of the GITD crystals and epoxy got very close to the diode window, luckily I used epoxy with great heat resistance and even though this is my most heavily used laser and I've had zero problems since the upgrade about a month ago.)
Here's a short list of the GITD upgrades :yh:
1. Ring applied inside the gap between the focus ring and the lens holder. (With a steady hand this isn't too bad.)
2. Applied GITD to bottom of the module. (This was a pain, took very careful work and in the future I'm going to do this before the diode is inserted.)
3. For the middle I filled in the entire C3's middle gap. (This took several batches because it needed to be layered and also needed monitoring so it didn't slump.)
4. For the tail I inlaid rings in the host grooves similar to glow rings then put a haze glow over and between the rings. (Had to be done in steps since the host is small and it required taping.)
And after all that it turns out pretty nice with a permanent and strong GITD addition.
It's really worth having a GITD module, lenses have a magnifying effect on the diode that we normally cannot see unless there is light inside the module. This is a picture taken straight down the lens and with a quick switch of the laser the splash/aurora charges the strontium aluminate, then the diode can be closely inspected without ever removing the lens. (You can see here some of the GITD crystals and epoxy got very close to the diode window, luckily I used epoxy with great heat resistance and even though this is my most heavily used laser and I've had zero problems since the upgrade about a month ago.)