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90mw 520nm laser

Nprlaser

Nprlaser

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Jul 5, 2013
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I decided to shoot some pictures of my stainless steel 520nm hand-held. This laser uses an Osram PL520 driven by a 220mA survival laser driver which sadly doesn't boost voltage so two 3.7 batteries are needed otherwise it will output 20mW on 6v and 0.5mW on 3.7v. Here are some photos:
13592138184_4f0f214c04_b.jpg

Low exposure shot
13592137524_1924363c78_b.jpg
Very Interesting comparison to 532nm(520nm is on low power)
13591797393_aea05d9571_b.jpg

mmmmhh, only if I had a 556nm laser...
13591797853_a9bd25a0ac_b.jpg

Beamshot
13591761415_93809a0b77_b.jpg

Here's what's interesting. Before I used a g-2 lens, I expected the divergence to be worse than a 3 element glass lens, but since this is single mode, the divergence is not affected at all. There also seems to be an artifact from it too.
13592137614_f43e5fd131_b.jpg
 





got that line artifact on mine too. pretty sure it's normal. 90mW for 220mA is not bad at all, thanks for sharing
 
Same here. I eventually learned to ignore the line from my green laser. It's from the diode cavity sandwich (Gallium Nitride is pretty much transparent).
 
Here is a pro tip for ya: Use an acrylic lens with that build. The power is higher than with a G lens if I remember right, don't know why, but it is. Also the beam is much cleaner. MUCH cleaner. With a G lens you get a bunch of fuzzy bullshit off to the side of the dot. Plus artifacts. With an acrylic lens you don't. I prefer Acrylic for anything under 400-500mW. Above that the only reason I don't is because the lens will eventually melt.

PS - I love Stainless Builds. Awesome job man!
 
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I like that host, I also have one (not my 520). I agree with IsaacT, I use an acrylic lens on my PL520 and I get a nice clean dot, when I first tried a 3 element it had a terrible amount of splash so I changed to an acrylic. My only complaint with the acrylic lens is that I have to screw it in almost all the way to the point I can't have the focus adapter screwed onto the lens far enough to use it for focusing.

Alan
 
For these single mode builds I always make them fixed focus by epoxying the lens in place. In doing this I get an AMAZING divergence. And why would I need to focus it anyway?

PS - this is my 5280th post. I am a mile high on LPF!
 
I have the same line artifact from my PL520. I think there must have been a revision to the design since the PL520 debuted - the diode in my Skylaser HL520 doesn't have the line artifact, rather it has the same "Osram square" as the PL450 did and apparently still does.

I think if I had it to do over, I'd go with the PLP520-B1 rather than the PL520. Oh well.
 
The PL520-B1 is one of my favorite diodes hands down! Amazing divergence, great power, and very few artifacts. And artifacts irritate me.
 
My PL520 has no line artifact, maybe I just got lucky or maybe it depends on what lens you use, the 3 element lens I first tried was terrible on that laser.

Alan
 
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