A simple hello to the community

[yoonie]

Hi there,

I guess I can present myself after lurking for a while.
I've been a laser enthusiast for a long time now (use to collect red pointers in elementary school 25 years ago...)
I'm glad I went through my childhood without becoming blind tho, oh how stupid we could be back then (yes I did look into the laser when the battery were dead...)
Luckily I've learnt more about lasers (especially DPSS and IR) in 2006 and bought a nice <55mW greenie from CNI with red goggles.

I have tried to avoid getting too much into that hobby that still seems to me like a hole in the wallet.
But well, it's like every 3 years or so I'm back lurking to tempt myself, and yeah I'm pretty tempted.

so I'll keep on lurking as my comprehension of DPSS laser was decent, and I need to catch up with direct diode (many questions for which I need to read more).
Also I'm so very suprised to see that the market seems to be stalled regarding handled 532nm (more expensive and harder to find a DPSS 532nm on a small form factor now), but wow... the wavelenghts available now ! (glad I did not buy a WL Blue spyder @ 1999$ !)

I doubt I'll be very active, but yeah wanted to say hello and most of all, thank you members for great ressources and sharing them.

(also sorry for being terrible at making a post attractive to read, you guys have it easy by collecting lasers and displaying their colors in your siggy)

Cheers

 

[Lifetime17]

Hi, Welcome to LPF here are many great folks to help. yes there are many direct 520 greens to be had from single mode to multimodes .
The 445/450 diodes are among the most popular of the high powers . Look through the forum many questions are answered here and use the search bar tons of info. Enjoy your stay and be safe ..

Rich

 

[Encap]

Welcome---enjoy the forum.

 

[BowtieGuy]

Hello, yoonie, welcome to LPF!

Have fun, be safe, and enjoy your stay.

 

[Coonie]

Interesting name... welcome

 

[ArcticDude]

Hi & welcome to LPF!

 

[WalkAmongUs]

Hi! Thanks for having me! I'm new to this hobby. Very new.
I started with the typical e-bay stuff. Hand helds and glasses. The desire to learn more (and spend less) has brought me here.

 

[irish303]

Welcome up on LPF

 

[CurtisOliver]

Welcome to the forum Yoonie.
Enjoy your stay!

 

[paul1598419]

Welcome to the LPF. Enjoy your stay and stay safe.

 

[RedCowboy]

Welcome to LPF
Stay safe and enjoy.

---edit---

As for dpss I also would like to see more 500-900mw and stronger modules available, I have seen the cheap stuff evolve and become reasonably reliable in the 30-175mw range but I would really like to see more interest in stronger modules as the beam quality is very good, yes the direct green single mode diodes are also pretty good to about 200mw ( overdriven ) and the 1w 520-525nm directs are strong but need corrective optics or a beam expander to get a dot far field rather than a bar/line, to me a laser beam should be round and as perfect as possible ending in a round spot, a dpss Gaussian beam has many benefits, but the directs are less temp sensitive and are very robust so I have on the back burner some ideas for 1w 520-525nm projects.
I have built blues with correction like this myself and 1w greens without correction yet but every time I look at a 1w green line/bar far field I get inspired again.

 

[yoonie]

Thank you all for the warm welcome!
Thanks RedCowboy for your interesting post, to me laser have always been about the beam specs over power or wavelength.
Thin, perfectly round with gaussian dot and the lowest divergence possible.
Then of course to appreciate it, the more visible it is the happier I am ...

I'll search for your post as I guess you probably described in more details your work on your blue lasers. Good inspiration anyway, keep it up