- Joined
- Sep 16, 2007
- Messages
- 3,663
- Points
- 113
Hi everyone.
I'm making my biannual appearance to share a "quick" build.
Several months ago I earned a PhD in evolutionary biology from my research on speciation genomics. I ended up getting a job in Montana, which is a big change from Southern California. I haven't had much time to catch my breath and catch up on hobbies, but I did squeeze in a little time at the machine to work on this laser.
I've been experimenting a bit with custom hosts and updating my collection in the process.
Most of my lasers are currently built into pens for convenience but I want to move some of my more special lasers to nice hosts.
I got a few 502 nm modules from Zraffleticket a while back. It's a non-standard diode package fitted into a standard 12 mm housing that produces about 20 mW.
My spectrometer needs to be recalibrated, so I won't post those graphs this time, but when I did check the wavelength about 8 months ago, I was measuring exactly 502 nm, as expected.
For the host, I kept it simple, as I like to do. It's made with brass and aluminum bar. It takes a single 10440 battery and has two switches wired in parallel: a momentary push-button, and a constant on/off push button. The button for the constant switch is recessed in a tiny hole through the brass cover plate to prevent accidental activation. The intention was to have the option of constant operation with the main function being momentary.
I still need to make a pretty aperture cover, which I have specific plans for.
I hope you like it!
I'm making my biannual appearance to share a "quick" build.
Several months ago I earned a PhD in evolutionary biology from my research on speciation genomics. I ended up getting a job in Montana, which is a big change from Southern California. I haven't had much time to catch my breath and catch up on hobbies, but I did squeeze in a little time at the machine to work on this laser.
I've been experimenting a bit with custom hosts and updating my collection in the process.
Most of my lasers are currently built into pens for convenience but I want to move some of my more special lasers to nice hosts.
I got a few 502 nm modules from Zraffleticket a while back. It's a non-standard diode package fitted into a standard 12 mm housing that produces about 20 mW.
My spectrometer needs to be recalibrated, so I won't post those graphs this time, but when I did check the wavelength about 8 months ago, I was measuring exactly 502 nm, as expected.
For the host, I kept it simple, as I like to do. It's made with brass and aluminum bar. It takes a single 10440 battery and has two switches wired in parallel: a momentary push-button, and a constant on/off push button. The button for the constant switch is recessed in a tiny hole through the brass cover plate to prevent accidental activation. The intention was to have the option of constant operation with the main function being momentary.
I still need to make a pretty aperture cover, which I have specific plans for.
I hope you like it!
