488nm cyan laser build

[Pershing228??]

On this build I used a pretty common cyan laser diode, the Sharp GH04850B2G. This diode is single mode, and emits light with 487-493nm wavelength. In my build, it works with a 400mA driver with 2x 18350 batteries. Since this diode is single mode, I choose the G2 single element glass lens to achieve the best efficiency. Now about interesting details… I don’t know how, but this thing can burn holes in craft paper in seconds without focusing at close range, burn CD cases and light matches from a 5m distance, it’s not very far away from my osram plt5-450b build with a 330mA driver. So the output power is unknown since I don’t have a laser power meter, but it’s definitely more, than I expected. The color of this laser is very beautiful, at low and medium power mode it looks blue to me, but on high power mode, on 400mA it’s pure cyan, a magic point between blue and green. In my room, under slightly warm lighting, this laser looks bluish, but in darkness it’s slightly green. Brightness of this diode is pretty good, about the same as my sharp 505(~510nm) build with a 350mA driver. Here’s some photos and beamshots: