Rats - Blew My Ocarlo, What Should I Replace it With?

Well I just fried a 700mW Ocarlo in a beautiful Eghemus host.



Silly me, I installed two batteries instead of one.
Whaaaat? Drivers don't auto-detect? Neither do diodes? :wtf:



Got a label on the tailcap now. :banghead: I've never been happy with the divergence of the Ocarlo. Looks like a fan but it is a nice bright red beam.

So since I have another 700mW Ocarlo from SciFi in their nice Arcane 2.0 host, divergence trumps output power for this rebuild. I would, however, like to clearly see the beam at night. Am I asking too much? Any recommendations?

EDIT: Just got 'lost' two 450nm and one 473nm at a cost of ~$700 for all three lasers. Hope PayPal disputes come through. How do the blues fare on divergence - looking for ~450nm, bright as possible.

Ouch!!! mind to tell me the story?( PM is fine as well). you will see the beam at night...however past 100 meters expect a long line.....and review your golden laser soon..

OVNI said:

Well I just fried a 700mW Ocarlo in a beautiful Eghemus host.

Silly me, I installed two batteries instead of one.
Whaaaat? Drivers don't auto-detect? Neither do diodes? :wtf:

Got a label on the tailcap now. :banghead: I've never been happy with the divergence of the Ocarlo. Looks like a fan but it is a nice bright red beam.

So since I have another 700mW Ocarlo from SciFi in their nice Arcane 2.0 host, divergence trumps output power for this rebuild. I would, however, like to clearly see the beam at night. Am I asking too much? Any recommendations?

EDIT: Just got scammed on two 450nm and one 473nm at a cost of ~$700 for all three lasers. Hope PayPal disputes come through. How do the blues fare on divergence - looking for ~450nm, bright as possible.

Click to expand...

Barcode laser. Had to go. Damn, how'd you get scammed?

Hi Ovni,
That diode can run on 1 cell or two cells lith-ion so it wasn't the batteries that blew the diode. I run one on two cells for greater power and there fine . What didi you have the driver set at ? Or maybe there was a short in the build some where.Maybe the drivers shot and not the diode ,did you test it?

Rich

What driver did you use? Are you absolutely sure the diode is blown? Don't know if you have the ability to take is apart and see if it's the driver or diode blown but in my experience it is the diode most of the time and the driver is fine.
I have some 700 and some 500 638nm builds (actually a bunch) and I prefer the same 500 as in my opinion it is easier to set higher. I test output with a G2 and then immediately install a 3-el. Divergence is really bad with them.
Can't mention the scam thing without the story behind it At least most would empathize with you. That's quite the chunk of change

I know who it is, but I'm reluctant to add them to the scammers list until they have had a chance to speak. The guy is a builder here, so perhaps open a thread asking about your lasers and if anyone has seen or heard from him. If you get a response all good, if not we can add him.
I just think it's fairer to give him another chance esp. if he's e.g. not well...:beer:

PayPal has buyer protection, but don't waste any time if you have talked to the seller file.

Why not a NUBM07E and leave the Gball on, the output is bright and pretty and it won't be as bas as that orange fan.

grainde said:

I know who it is, but I'm reluctant to add them to the scammers list until they have had a chance to speak. The guy is a builder here, so perhaps open a thread asking about your lasers and if anyone has seen or heard from him. If you get a response all good, if not we can add him.
I just think it's fairer to give him another chance esp. if he's e.g. not well...:beer:

Click to expand...

Grainde is right. I'm not certain it was deliberate although the amount of lost money is hard to accept. I may start another thread, haven't decided yet whether to keep trying or move on.

RedCowboy said:

PayPal has buyer protection, but don't waste any time if you have talked to the seller file.

Why not a NUBM07E and leave the Gball on, the output is bright and pretty and it won't be as bas as that orange fan.

Click to expand...

Turns out PayPal's buyer protection spans 180 days. Lucky for me, I'm in month four.

One of the builds I 'lost' was a NUBM07E mounted in a polished Kryton. So I bought and just received a beautiful polished Kryton with a NUBM07E from Grainde. I still plan to add a picture of all my lasers to my signature as many already do. But now I want to finish the collection with a ~450nm. I may use this host with the red for another blue.

Lifetime17 said:

Hi Ovni,
That diode can run on 1 cell or two cells lith-ion so it wasn't the batteries that blew the diode. I run one on two cells for greater power and there fine . What didi you have the driver set at ? Or maybe there was a short in the build some where.Maybe the drivers shot and not the diode ,did you test it?

Rich

Click to expand...

That's a good tip/reminder. I forgot about that. I see the diode runs on less than 4.2V so it's a buck driver for one or two batteries. It has DTR's diode/driver module (see response below). So I guess it's Murphy's fault after all. :thinking:

Pman said:

What driver did you use? Are you absolutely sure the diode is blown? Don't know if you have the ability to take is apart and see if it's the driver or diode blown but in my experience it is the diode most of the time and the driver is fine.

Click to expand...

Eghemus built the whole thing but I requested "DTR's Oclaro 700mW 638 Diode In Copper Module W/Driver & Three Element Glass lens. Power with 3.5-9V or one/two 3.7V Li-Ion(s). $75 with the driver set to 1.2A." Until I take it apart, I assume that's what is in it. I have the ability to supply constant current power directly to the diode to test it.

EDIT March 23, 2016: Finally separated the driver from the LD to test. LD is dead. I asked DTR whether his drivers have soft start circuitry and he said yes. So I'm chalking it up to bad luck. While I'm going to test the driver too, I'm going to replace both driver and LD just to be extra cautious. Use this driver for something else. Maybe go with another color LD.

At the risk of getting scolded for double-posting, I wasn't sure if 'editing' my last post would cause this to appear as new so here goes.

I tested the driver. It's an SXD built by Lazeerer according to the silk screen. Eghemus bought it from DTR at my request. My understanding is this a DC-DC (down) converter, aka buck driver?



Now I know I need to use a diode load for real world results but I don't have one yet so I used a test load consisting of a 1-ohm, 2W resistor. I'm going to buy a diode load - I see Survival sells them and see them here on LPF from time to time - any recommendations?

The SXD output range was measured adjusting the trim pot/cap (upper left - don't know how to tell) from its lowest output (fully counter clockwise) to highest output (fully clockwise).

1) With one fully charged Li-Ion battery the SXD driver output varies from 1.4V to 2.3V.

2) With two fully charged Li-Ion batteries the SXD driver output varies from 1.7V to 2.5V, so ~10-20% variation.

Should it vary like this? Is it because it's a resistive load?

With the trim pot/cap turned all the way down it was meant to deliver 1.2A, i.e. measure 1.2V across 1-ohm.