22W NUBB23 Pointer

[Gryphon]

With a bit of searching for a good looking side clicky 3X18650 host I found a flashlight I liked and quickly drew and printed a heatsink and cap as a proof of concept.

After hitting up Lifetime17 for some machine work he sent me this beautiful piece. The solid copper heatsink is even heavier than I thought it would be and is exactly what I wanted. Thank you Lifetime17!

The NUBB23 fits nicely in the machined pocket in the front.

A 20mm window from Edmunds will help keep dust and soot away from the laser array

The flashlight even came with my name on it lol

Its not exactly pointer sized but 22W in one hand is pretty close

I originally wanted to powder coat or even paint the heatsink, but I must say I'm quite liking the weathered look

 

[Gryphon]

Just under the side clicky I managed to cram in a 3.1A LM338T based current regulator with a IRLB3034 MOSFET for power switching.

For power im using 6 high drain Vapecell INR18350's. By cutting a few coils off the battery springs you can fit two of these cells in the same space the 18650 was supposed to go. With six of these in series I can power the array with just a current regulator.

This much power in such a small and weighty package is invigorating!

 

[dubious speculation]

Nice beams

Excellent work Gryphon! I'm so glad you're active and posting crazy builds after all these years!

Do you have beam shots showing the spot profile at long distance?

Really curious how this NUB23 package compares to the more spaced out NUB35 packages.

 

[RedCowboy]

The NUBB's have shorter focal length lenses in their gang lens because it's a smaller package with less space between the substrate stacks, actually there's very little space at all.
---------------------
Cool build Gryphon
Have you planed a slip over lens holder for an additional lens yet ?
You should be able to just get the 4 beams into a 3X Beam Expander as long as it's well centered.
Rich/Lifetime17 can make a threaded adapter, probably a slip over with a threaded hole for the 3XBE..... Just an idea in case you hadn't already thought of it.

Edit: Actually Rich could make you a threaded cap you could swap out and an added benefit is it would keep your arrays gang lens clean/protected.

 

[Gryphon]

Nice beams

Excellent work Gryphon! I'm so glad you're active and posting crazy builds after all these years!

Do you have beam shots showing the spot profile at long distance?

Really curious how this NUB23 package compares to the more spaced out NUB35 packages.

Thank you so much! I don't have any pictures of their far field patterns but I can say that these little NUBB23's have quite aggressive divergence, similar to the NUBM37 (125W). Probably the best I have is the NUBM35 (70W), that one looks the best in terms of the central spot, but unfortunately has the most excess splash. Kind of a pick your poison with these arrays.

Cool build Gryphon
Have you planed a slip over lens holder for an additional lens yet ?
You should be able to just get the 4 beams into a 3X Beam Expander as long as it's well centered.

Thank you! I'm actually thinking about a 3XBE, I might pick one up shortly just to mess around with it. I tried my best to get the beams as centered as possible, looks like it may be off by no more than 1mm, I could easily account for that in a 3D printed adapter if needed.

 

[Gryphon]

Do you have beam shots showing the spot profile at long distance?

Curiosity got the best of me and I needed to see for myself so I set everything up to get some pictures of the spots at 35ft. The first one is the new NUBB23 (approx 200mm tall), thin but very bar shaped.

The second one is the NUBM35 (approx 150mm tall), this one is nice, still decently square and less spread then the NUBB23.

Last is the NUBM37 (approx 400mm tall), this one is massive!

Don't worry, the blue isn't getting through the glasses, rather its coming in-between my camera and the glass as I'm holding it next to it.