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FrozenGate by Avery

DX new range of Blue/Violet Modules

I put together my 405 today with the same host and wow I've never seen such a strange colour.
 





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I bought a "50mW" UV laser from DX (item 80922) for around $10 with the intent to try and modify it to expose photoresist on a PCB. I run my own electronics business and I'm planning on building a PCB Photoplotter.

It turned up a week later - hooked it up to a bench PSU and had a play. It draws around 200ma when on so its obviously doing something with a fair bit of power. Initially I was very disappointed - the beam only came into focus after around a meter or so. Then I pulled the lens out of a cheapo laser I also ordered at the same time. I held it up to the end of the UV laser and had a play.

I now have a focal length of around 5-6mm - I even get a wisp of smoke if I hold it long enough to a dark surface.

Not very technical, not very scientific but now I have a laser held together with electrical tape which has a very small focussed line.

So on to messing about with photoresist PCBs - I zapped a bit of offcut board with the laser and noticed the resist slowly change colour - excellent. A bit more playing with the laser 5mm from the board resulted in some quite nice exposure - you can write with the laser at around the same speed as you would do with a ballpoint pen.

Unfortunately I didn't have any developer mixed up so left if for a couple of weeks.

This morning I had to make a batch of new PCBs for customers so while they were etching I had another play.

Results below- ignore the panel of PCBs - they were done using the conventional method.

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This could be a fun little project ......
 
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These are diode lasers so unlike greens, there's no real reason for them not to be up to spec. Its usually hard to mess up 'low power' (relatively) diode modules like these. so i bet they're probably close to spec.
 
I do hope you were wearing appropriate goggles when you were shining that at your face/camera. 20mW is plenty to cause retinal burns.. and my guess is that's more powerful than 20mW as well.
 
I admit i wasn't wearing my goggles since i had left my focalprice goggles at a friends place but the laser was no where near my face or eyes.
 
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no of course not.

I'm not that careless.

Anyway I have my focalprice goggles back now. For $8 there pretty good. I put them in front of my camera and shone a metered 50mW laser and all my camera saw was IR
 
what you could do is buy the 5mw module and just adjust the current to raise it to where ever you want, so you don't have to pay extra for someone else turning the potentiometer.
 
I tried that but managed to break the pot.

Why must I be such a n00b :cryyy:
 
'pot modding' is never advisable.. There are lot of different BR diodes out there.. some only capable of less than 20mW.. You have no way of knowing what diodes the 5mw ones are made with.

If your determined to try it, i'd get two.. or more.. though for that price, you could have just gone ahead and gotten a higher power one.. Even the 100mW one is less than $20.. It's not like we're talking about 'big money' here.
 
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