Dragon Lasers 400mW Spartan, now with pictures

[RA_pierce]

The beam looks good.
Much more gaussian and circular than what we are used to seeing with our DIYs.
It definitely looks like it has some kind of beam correction but I can't say how they did it.
Obviously it is not very efficient since they still need the aperture cap as a "splash guard." But I would be happy with it.

 

[kcorbhv]

95mW green viper and 400mW blue spartan beamshot

400mw spartan

 

[jedirock]

Finally got around to measuring the divergence... At 20' 4" (244", or 6.2m approx), the beam is 9mm x 14mm. At the aperture, the beam is 6mm x 5mm (yes, the slow axis is actually bigger at the aperture). So that comes out to 0.48mRad on the slow axis, and 1.45mRad on the fast axis.

 

[brando132]

Fast Axis=diverges faster.
Slow Axis=diverges slower.

 

[leftkidney]

its 400mW and it has trouble lighting a match?

I have a 150mW 405nm laser and it lights matches fine and from what I know the color dont matter its the mW rating so 400mW should light a match right away

my 405nm laser is that cheepie bluray burning lighter laser mod thingie you can find online if you google it - there is no focusing lens but I can light matches and burn things no problem

 

[jedirock]

its 400mW and it has trouble lighting a match?

Yeah, I know. I'm not sure that it's putting out 400mW, but I'd be surprised if it's much less than that. It could be the type of match I'm using too, as it's labelled a safety match. I have a Kenometer Pro coming, so I can hopefully test the output level using that once it comes whistle: Kenom...).

 

[jedirock]

Added pictures to OP of the diode heatsink and driver... Killed it in the process, but should be repairable. Details in the OP.

 

[goninanbl00d]

Added pictures to OP of the diode heatsink and driver... Killed it in the process, but should be repairable. Details in the OP.

Brilliant work, that was a healthy Spartan. :thinking:

So CNI uses harvested diodes? I didn't know they had the orange pin support on their diodes. Or perhaps they get their diodes from another source. I'm just guessing.

Always nice to learn about the guts of these lasers.

 

[Grix]

Finally got around to measuring the divergence... At 20' 4" (244", or 6.2m approx), the beam is 9mm x 14mm. At the aperture, the beam is 6mm x 5mm (yes, the slow axis is actually bigger at the aperture). So that comes out to 0.48mRad on the slow axis, and 1.45mRad on the fast axis.

Huh? If the slow axiz is bigger at the aperture, surely that means that there are some correction optics in there that expands it?

 

[jedirock]

Huh? If the slow axiz is bigger at the aperture, surely that means that there are some correction optics in there that expands it?

Well, unless the beam is twisting on the way to my measuring surface, that's how it measures. It looks that way too going through my ruler.