jsyco
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- Joined
- Aug 7, 2010
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Mini review of the jayrob 18650 stainless steel "hot option" kit. This top notch kit consists of the stainless steel Aurora host, copper heatsink, 1/2" custom copper module, AixiZ 445 glass lens, EZfocus adapter and driver mounted in the pill with lead wires soldered to the driver and power set to 1W. My contribution is one each A140 445nM diode.the kit as shipped
SS 18650 next to o-like 150mW 532nM
This host is very nice and the one I received is about as close to mirror finish as it can get, very nice piece of stainless steel.
Jayrobs machining skills are apparent on the substantial copper heatsink and custom copper module that is used in place of an AixiZ module and his EZfocus adapter looks great on the business end of this host.
Sorry I don't have pictures of assembly, I forgot to take my camera when I went to my shop this morning, besides jayrob has plenty of photos on his thread devoted to this kit. I can however offer a couple of assembly tips.
First off for the hot option jayrob solders wires to the driver which is then installed into the pill with double sided tape he also tinned the ends of the wires. these wires are only about 1" long, so with the diode pressed into the module and the module bottomed out in the heatsink the diode pins are still inside the hollow end of the heatsink. Once you get the heatsink and pill mounted in clamps and the wires held in place with clips your left with just enough room to get your iron to the pins. This is where my first assembly tip comes into play. Unlike me DONT do two espresso double shots before you try this solder job. My hands were shaking so bad I was afraid I would ESD the diode just from the friction of the iron tip on the pins. In spite of all this I ended up with two mirror bright perfect and I am quite sure permanent connections. I don't solder very often but my dad was an electronic technician and taught me how when I was a kid, I was amazed at the beautiful work he could do with an iron that had a tip the size of one of jayrobs fingers.
On the plus side the fact that the wires are so short helps when it's time to screw the pill and heatsink into the host. On jayrobs 18650 kit thread he explains that you can pinch the pill and heatsink together as you screw the hosts cap down onto the assembly, but this host unexpectedly has a spring for both pos and neg so I found it impossible to use the pinch method. Since I used heat shrink on the solder joints and the wires are short to begin with I was able to sneak a piece of electrical tape through as small of a gap between the heatsink and pill as I could manage and with some precision tweezers wrap it around the wires above the heat shrink. This stiffened the wires enough that I was able to hold the solder blobs on the bottom of the pill with needle nose pliers and screw the host down while watching the heatsink to make sure it didn't turn, as I had used a small bristle "pipe" brush to clean the threads in the host and pill it actually worked very well. Another tip is that if you get jayrobs EZfocus adapter with this go ahead and put it in the module before you tighten the pill that last bit as it is the same diameter as the host you can use it to make sure the heatsink is perfectly centered.
So now all thats left is two or three wraps of teflon tape around the 445 lens, screw it down and put in a freshly charged protected 2600mAh AW 18650 fresh from Lighthound. With the battery in this unit feels very solid and substantial in your hand, that can be attributed to the fact that at 193.4 grams this is damn near 1/2 pound of awe inspiring blindingly blue laser in your hand.
Now to put on my goggles and check out that AixiZ 445 lens. This is a nice lens with a very wide focus range and even though I'm not into burning who can resist. At about 10" this lens will focus down to what looks like around 0.5mm and will burn bright white paper instantly. I was surprised as I expected it to be able to burn white paper just not that fast. According to jayrob the A405 lens is a better burner but I cant imagine it getting much better than this.
beam focused in shot
beam focused at 10'
The beam shape of this A140 diode is a very well defined bar but the 445 glass lens will focus it down to a very nice dot. The beam on this 445nM is a fatty and kind of hazy, looks to be around 1.5 to
1.7mm whereas the beam of my 150mW 532nM is very well defined and looks to be <1mm. but it is a gorgeous wavelength of blue and lucky me my eyes seem to be particularly tolerant to this specific wavelength. I do use my goggles religiously but in showing it to a friend of mine after warning him of the danger of focusing on the dot for more than a glance I shone the laser at a matte surface about thirty feet away. He said that even just a glance for him was too much but I found that I could not only look at the dot I was also able to see the actual shape of the dot, but even at thirty feet knowing what I know about this wavelength at this power level I was uncomfortable looking at the dot for more than a second.
So the long and short of it is, beautiful host, easy build, awesome supplier in jayrob good communication and as long as he has the items in stock prompt service. I will buy from him again and would recommend him to anyone for kits, parts or custom machining.
One last thing is I would like to send this and my O-like 150mW 532nM to a member that has an LPM to get me the numbers on actual output for both of these. someone fairly close would be preferable I am in Tampa Florida.
Thanks jayrob :worthy:
jeff