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FrozenGate by Avery

Have any of you used this company or 473 diode?






To answer the thread title: I have not used this company (...yet). But, I can still try to clear some things up.
C-Mount 808nm diodes are usually found in higher power DPSS lasers, or at least every single one I've personally run into was. A C-Mount diode is an open diode (no can nor glass), there's also a hole inside it so you can fit a screw inside or something similar to mount it onto something (hence, mount. C I think means circular but correct me if I'm wrong!). C-Mount reds (670nm) I assume were the reds used in some high powered lab lasers, never seen one in a handheld on the forums.
As for 9mm it's just a larger LD.
I have no doubt 473nm diodes exist, but DPSS 473nm is probably much cheaper than a direct diode.
Now, as for the diode page, I saw a 488nm diode... If that sells for less than $1000 I'm buying... And they have 510's there too. Hmm...
E: inquired about the 488nm diode. waiting for reply....
 
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Interesting....

I'd definitely lust over a 375nm or 473nm direct diode. Do let us know about their responce, and perhaps prices if they divulge them. I expect four digit figures.
 
Hey guys,

In an effort to perhaps dissuade the forum from flooding these guys with diode pricing requests, let me pass along what I know.

1) I inquired about their 510nm diodes (as did another member here, who actually prompted me about them having the diodes in stock). It's not appropriate to share their pricing openly, but I'm comfortable to say that their quote for a reasonable QTY of 510s was 5x the price I paid for mine and Arynthas (in a QTY of just 2). So keep that in mind when you guesstimate the price of their other diodes. This company is adding a lot of markup to already expensive diodes.

2) The 473nm and 488nm diodes are made by Nichia. You can see the diodes at Thorlabs.com, which displays the pricing without requiring inquiry. These diodes cost upwards of $4,000 per diode. That's not a typo. I've inquired with every single company I've ever seen carry the the Nichia 473 and 488nm diodes, in any format (in a product or as a bare diode), and they are NEVER cheaper than Thorlabs' $4k price tag, and often quite a bit higher. ZRaffel has inquired, lets all wait for his response before deluging these guys with identical pricing requests.

3) The 375nm diode - also Nichia, and also $4k + from every source I've ever seen stock it.
 
Thanks RHD, the 375 and 473 directs are news to me. I sent a quote inquiry to a UK company I found through the powertech site about the 375nm diode, 473nm diode, and a 1mW 473nm OEM module. I'm not expecting prices to be affordable for us, but I was curious what they were asking anyway.

I wonder if Nichia is trying to hold off on the UV diodes for when we want storage mediums better than blu-ray...
 
I wouldn't expect less than that honestly, and really I wouldn't be interested in the 473nm diodes. Since the 445's started coming out there's been much less demand for 473nm, which in turn made a HUGE price drop. 10mW of 473 before the 445's would be between $5-7 hundred, now lazerer sells them for $300. (and I bought a 150mW labby for double that) The diodes would be 4 digits for maybe 20mW max as opposed to 3 digits 250mW max. Just throwing that out there--
As for the 375's and the 488's there, I like those. 488nm novalux dpss lasers maxed 20mW (IIRC) and weren't even portable. If I can get a 488nm diode (according to their specs) i can run it at 20mW and have a super long life time in a handheld. (Not too sure if you've seen 488nm Sigurthr, but i like that color a LOT more than I like my 473nm's color) UV diodes just interest me because i've seen what not-so-deep IR (720nm) looks like, I just want to see it in purple :p

Hm, during the course of my previewing of this post RHD commented, I can now expect myself NOT to buy the 488nm or 375nm :undecided:
Still no reply yet from them, It's a sunday so I'll let it slide :whistle:
Mabye ask CNI to make the 488nm handheld RHD? then get a super high price on what turns out to be a 473
 
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Sigurthr said:
I wonder if Nichia is trying to hold off on the UV diodes for when we want storage mediums better than blu-ray...
Click to expand...

I don't think Nichia is trying to hold off - I think there's just insanely little current demand for 375nm diodes, which makes them an incredibly niche product, and thus pricey.

ZRaffleticket said:
Hm, during the course of my previewing of this post RHD commented, I can now expect myself NOT to buy the 488nm or 375nm :undecided:
Still no reply yet from them, It's a sunday so I'll let it slide :whistle:
Mabye ask CNI to make the 488nm handheld RHD? then get a super high price on what turns out to be a 473
Click to expand...

In all seriousness, I have asked CNI to do this 4 or 5 times, and I believe Aryntha has also. They won't.

There are a handful of other lab unit manufacturers out there that use the Nichia 488s in their products. I've contacted most of them, asking about low performing diodes, or even about "1mW" lab setups (which I presume use basically the same diode). It's pretty much $5k+ for anything containing a 488nm diode, from anyone, anywhere. You
save" $1k by buying the diode bare from Thorlabs.

These diodes will not be affordable until a consumer product integrates them. Unfortunately, there's no obvious consumer product that would benefit from 488 over ~460. Nichia just doesn't want to have an end-user diode sales channel. If you look at the price of 445nm multi-mode diodes, they're still quite pricey if you try to buy them from Nichia (or rather a Nichia re-seller) as bare diodes (like $500+ I believe?).

488nm diodes will be affordable when one of two things happens:

1) Another manufacturer starts making them.
2) Used 488nm diode labbies start showing up on eBay 10 years from now.
 
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Maybe when DIY laser eye surgery machines start popping up we can harvest some 488's! :eg:
 
but for now we'll just have to stick with argons for 488nm output, or psuedo 488 by combining 445 and 532 and adjusting the mix to "look" like 488. As for 473, I just got one of those little B&W lasers - it should be in the mail as we speak :)
 
Earlier I kind of bashed 473nm, What you have coming is a beautiful laser color. Comparing it to 445nm it's just amazing. How many mW's?
I recently tried mixing 445nm and 532nm, it came close to looking like 488nm but it's still "off" compared to it.
Judging by what I know and have seen, if I can get my hands on a 480nm laser that would be my absolute favorite color. Problem is getting one "cheap" in this hobby. And CNI is the only place that seems to have them--

Back onto the topic for a small bit, they also offer 692nm, which is close to ruby lasers' wavelengths. Tempted to ask about that one too, anyone know if there's much (if any at all) of a color difference between that and a 685nm diode?
 
It should be around 10+ milliwatts. I'm actually getting it for 2 reasons, one is to have one of this wavelength and the other to show a mate the colour before he commits to a 100-150mw 473 projector (he likes argon blue and I said this is the closest you will get without the large psu and fans). His argon projector died (in fact the tube is still sitting under my workbench) so I offered to help him out by building a much smaller solid state unit.
 
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The mix of 473nm will be different than 488nm but that can be assumed right off the bat; It should make a nice replacement. I also recommend buying from ultralasers.com or from meierlight, both stores seem to have good reviews.
 
ZRaffleticket said:
(Not too sure if you've seen 488nm Sigurthr, but i like that color a LOT more than I like my 473nm's color) UV diodes just interest me because i've seen what not-so-deep IR (720nm) looks like, I just want to see it in purple :p
Click to expand...

I haven't seen 488 in person yet unfortunately =/ , only on my monitor and that NEVER does justice to wavelength. I didn't see a 488 on the site in the initial link, nor on the site of the company I contacted, so I didn't comment on it before. I'd love a 488 as well, I'm in the hobby for wavelength collection, not burning or max power, so even 1mW would be great. That's why I requested a quote for the 1mW 473nm module. Even though I have a 473nm labby, it isn't TEM00 and has terrible divergence and isn't stable, and is not even close to being portable since the power supply takes up about a square foot. A OEM module ~ 1mW 473nm would make a great DIY handheld. For low powers nothing beats a handheld. Once you get in to higher powers I'd rather have a labby because of duty cycle though.

Aye, same/similar reason I want the 375nm. I can rather easily see 808nm and from comparing with friends and family, I can see it a lot better than anyone else I've met can. I'm curious where my vision limit lies, so wavelengths on the fringes of vision interest me. I know I can't see 946 and up though, but no idea where the cutoff actually lies. And on the UV side of things I can see 385nm rather well too, that is... if 385nm LEDs are actually on spec.
 
Still no reply about the diode... Hopefully it doesnt take too much longer.
I'm tempted to ask CNI about the 480nm price as well, even for 1mW. It looks shockingly more efficient than I expected (compared to some other DPSS processes), their labeled max power is 150mW.
I asked a while back about their 457nm and Ava asked what my budget was, so probably not cheap... my assumption is 480nm is the same case.
 
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