How laser headlights work.

[steve001]

How Laser Headlights Work

When we think about the onward march of automotive technology, headlights aren’t usually the first thing that come to mind. Engines, fuel efficiency, and the switch to electric power are all …

hackaday.com

 

[Buert]

An eye-catching article, I also agree with you. The headlight needs some standard replacement.

 

[RedCowboy]

I ordered one of these, it says 2.5-3.0A @ 4.3-4.5V which sounds like Osrams 5W 440nm but I thought LEP used 405nm........if it used two diodes they should be in series which would mean 9V so it's almost certainly a single diode, I would love to find a new 5W 405nm with fantastic divergence.

Does anyone already have this unit ? Does anyone already know know what diode is inside this unit ?

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[wolfram]

Cowboy, I thought I read 0.45W on the provided sheet.

 

[RedCowboy]

That's how much " laser composition in the output light " which I take to mean the white light product from the phosphor will contain no more that 0.45w of unconverted 450nm light.

The thing is basically a laser directed into LEP phosphor and it runs on 3A @ 4.5V which should be about a 4-5w 445nm blue laser, there is no driver so that's the diode input.......I thought I had read elsewhere that they used a 405nm laser diode in LEP flashlights, however this unit I think is using a 450nm laser to pump the phosphor.

 

[wolfram]

Hey cowboy, thank you for the explanation.

 

[RedCowboy]

No problem, still learning myself.

The Jetbeam m1 is 480lm and the Acebeam w30 is 550lm but this is 800lm or so they all say, likely made as part of a laser headlight assembly.

I fully expect....... well I hope that we will see LEP based industrial searchlights, off-road searchlights, marine searchlights for boats/ships and more that should be a lot stronger and hopefully with new stronger laser diodes........ dare we dream with better divergence too, maybe with beam shaping built in........ we saw how N1ch1@ used little reflectors for each emitter in their nubm arrays, now imagine beam shaping optics before each reflector in an array to pump LEP designed around maximum throw.

 

[WizardG]

Cryphosphor™ single crystal phosphor | Crytur.cz

www.crytur.com

 

[RedCowboy]

Very interesting, that could be a real game changer.

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Here's a small increase in power, says 30W however I believe they are counting input power, still they are getting stronger.

30W White Laser Searchlight - Deshun Technology

Specifications This white laser light has 4 power modes of high, medium, low and strobe. Press the tail switch to turn on the searchlight, to change the power modes it is just a case of quickly pressing the tail switch “off- on”. Beam angle adjustment: the white laser light beam angle can be...

www.dosoe.net

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Is this what I think it is....says 140w LED and 240W laser......240w LEP in the center ??

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[RedCowboy]

I received my little LEP module today and it's pretty cool, you can focus the white beam down pretty tight for white light and see the white beam in the air, after 3 optics to get it into my LPM I am getting 180mw @ 2.5a but there are losses.

The construction is simple, the laser diode has a integrated lens plus a tiny sliver of a final focusing lens that focuses the laser to a tiny spot on the phosphor via of a small mirror.

The GBall lens appears to be a G2 style and the spot/bar is about 1 inch wide on my ceiling, well focused for a gball, the laser is doing 4.25W @ 2.5a and 5W @ 3A.
EDIT: Hits 7.5W @ 5A

 

[RedCowboy]

Well it's a GBall but it has the best focus I have ever seen from a GBall, very sharp line on my ceailng about 1 inch wide, very tight at a few inches, could be used with a c-lens pair maybe 8X
Got the diode up to 7.5W @ 5A so it's likely an 08 or 0AT

 

[bostjan]

Very very cool.

But people use these on their vehicles? Are they distracting to other drivers? If a motorist with these equipped hits something (deer, tree, pole, roadsign, car, pedestrian, etc.), and the alignment gets off far enough, is there then a 4 W 445 nm beam shooting out into the roadway somewhere?

 

[RedCowboy]

No it's enclosed, if the wreck was so bad that it broke the housing which is aluminum or aluminum allow then I doubt it would still work, also there's likely a crash sensor that sets off the airbags and probably disables the fuel pump ( has been an inertial circuit breaker ) and disables the laser headlights, tightens the seat belts, unlocks the doors, ect....

The laser diode is soldered by its two pins to the tiny board, when I unsoldered it it fell out of the little pocket which only has some thermal paste behind it, any crash able to smash the housing would likely destroy the connection, but I suppose it's possible for the computer to fail and the laser to stay intact and connected with only the ......well actually the little lens and mirror is pretty solid, for all that to get sheared off and the diode not be broken off the tiny board is unlikely, but if all the starts aligned I suppose it could happen, I haven't read about any instance of it though.

The phosphor is amazing, the laser is focused to a very small point in the center of the little phosphor square, the phosphor itself is paper thin.