1W Spartan lost focus. Burned diode?

[Doomie]

Read all the posts on here about the Spartan laser lens and its tendency to melt. I took my lens out carefully, no problems. A flawless lens. I can see the diode down in the host - and it has a nice black dot slightly off center, with slight lighter coloring around the edges. So, I've seen other diodes, and they arent supposed to have a black spot in the center.

Out of warranty. I don't think finding a diode of this specification will be cheap or easy to do myself. What a crappy purchase. I took care of it, too.

This is why I avoided wicked lasers. I wanted quality....I guess I should have done more research. This thing is now a $250+ paperweight.

 

[IsaacT]

I am not sure why Weeba2kv felt the need to triple post unrelated content, but what it sounds like is that you got some particles on the lens of the diode and when you turned on the laser, it began to bake those lil particles onto the lens. If you can take it apart easily, you might try decanning the diode, which involves cutting the "can", or the silver protruding encolsure, off of the diode. This will get rid of the window and may allow your diode to live a life again....although the lifespan will be up in the air. Will depend on how much damage the die took from the heat/reflections.

If you cannot decn the diode you might try removing it and purchasing a 445nm diode from DTR. An M140 should do the trick easily. Just hook it all up and you are good to go. BUT make sure you don't get stuff on the next one's lens; that can be an expensive habit.

 

[Eudaimonium]

@Weeba, you must be a fun person at parties. Deducted reputation for triple-post nonsense.

Read all the posts on here about the Spartan laser lens and its tendency to melt. I took my lens out carefully, no problems. A flawless lens. I can see the diode down in the host - and it has a nice black dot slightly off center, with slight lighter coloring around the edges. So, I've seen other diodes, and they arent supposed to have a black spot in the center.

Out of warranty. I don't think finding a diode of this specification will be cheap or easy to do myself. What a crappy purchase. I took care of it, too.

This is why I avoided wicked lasers. I wanted quality....I guess I should have done more research. This thing is now a $250+ paperweight.

Well, no company has a 100% quality record, never has and never will have ...

Bad luck, man. I'm sorry to hear it. But I do also hear that Spartan isn't all that tough to take apart and have it's diode replaced (well, relatively speaking, compared to other commercial lasers), so you should maybe investigate that option as well. Perhaps you can even upgrade it to higher power levels.

Anyhow, when did the problem start appearing? Do you have/can take a picture of the diode's defect? Did you take the lens off the laser before the problem appeared? If so, some dust particles or something may have settled on the diode's window, directly in the path of some 1W+ of laser light, and got baked into the diode.

 

[Doomie]

Ah, that's an excellent reason for baked diode, but I opened it months after the problem appeared. My only guess is a bit of glue knocked loose, and screwed the diode. Ill try to post a pic. It's gnarly

 

[Laser engineer]

Read all the posts on here about the Spartan laser lens and its tendency to melt. I took my lens out carefully, no problems. A flawless lens. I can see the diode down in the host - and it has a nice black dot slightly off center, with slight lighter coloring around the edges. So, I've seen other diodes, and they arent supposed to have a black spot in the center.

Out of warranty. I don't think finding a diode of this specification will be cheap or easy to do myself. What a crappy purchase. I took care of it, too.

This is why I avoided wicked lasers. I wanted quality....I guess I should have done more research. This thing is now a $250+ paperweight.

Whats that About wicked lasers? I want to buy their arctic laser.. If theirs anything bad about them can you tell me? Thnx

 

[Raiden Gekkou]

Whats that About wicked lasers? I want to buy their arctic laser.. If theirs anything bad about them can you tell me? Thnx

Wicked Lasers is notorious around these parts for making underspec lasers. It's a bit of a gamble.