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- Jun 13, 2007
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Hey everybody! It must have been years since the last time I posted a build thread, but now I finally I have something interesting enough to post. 
Over the past few years I have kept an eye on the forums and eBay for cheap lasers that are either broken or old, and slowly I have accumulated some interesting parts. In particular, I got an old Viasho handheld green laser and a Lasever 473nm unit with issues.
Below in the Viasho (I think) unit that I bought. It has an "awesomelasers" sticker on it, which leads to a dead website. It looks like just a rebranded Viasho unit, which are actually very nice units. Got it for $25 on eBay.
The output is only about 30mW of green. I don't need another lower power 532nm laser, so I decided to sacrifice it for the build.
Moth for scale.
Here's the head disassembled. Lots of glue.
I ripped out the crystal set and pump diode and set them aside. I'm hoping to try pumping the piss out of that crystal set with a B+W head carcass and see if I can get any output...
Here's the Lasever 473nm module. I bought this unit with issues, which was likely just a dead TEC. It would output ~125mW on startup, and then dim to 0mW over about 5 minutes. Terrible for a labby, but still acceptable for a handheld. Unfortunately I got distracted when I first tore it down months ago and never measured the current to the pump diode.
The driver in the Viasho unit was found to output 1.0A. I added a resistor in parallel to another resistor on the driver and was able to up the current to 1.45A. I should have looked up some 808nm datasheets to try to find an optimum drive current for the Lasever module, but I'm lazy and just hooked up the driver circuit to the Lasever pump diode...
The next problem to tackle was the output. The Lasever module outputs a very thin, highly divergent beam. I experimented with a bunch of different lenses to correct the output, which turned out to be difficult.
I ended up choosing an AixiZ acrylic lens. I ground down the mount a bit so I could get the lens close enough to the output to give the right correction.
I used some glue to mount the lens to the module, as well as the aperture cap.
There's barely enough space for the module, bit it fits and now I have a working 473nm handheld! The output is fairly unstable and it modehops a bit, but I get roughly 60mW of blue output with the current configuration. The blue module is not optimally heatsinked in this build, but oh well.
I hope you enjoyed the thread!
Aaaand shameless plug for my giant FS thread: http://laserpointerforums.com/f39/updated-5-28-styropyro-s-liquidation-sale-96691.html
Over the past few years I have kept an eye on the forums and eBay for cheap lasers that are either broken or old, and slowly I have accumulated some interesting parts. In particular, I got an old Viasho handheld green laser and a Lasever 473nm unit with issues.
Below in the Viasho (I think) unit that I bought. It has an "awesomelasers" sticker on it, which leads to a dead website. It looks like just a rebranded Viasho unit, which are actually very nice units. Got it for $25 on eBay.
The output is only about 30mW of green. I don't need another lower power 532nm laser, so I decided to sacrifice it for the build.
Moth for scale.
Here's the head disassembled. Lots of glue.
I ripped out the crystal set and pump diode and set them aside. I'm hoping to try pumping the piss out of that crystal set with a B+W head carcass and see if I can get any output...
Here's the Lasever 473nm module. I bought this unit with issues, which was likely just a dead TEC. It would output ~125mW on startup, and then dim to 0mW over about 5 minutes. Terrible for a labby, but still acceptable for a handheld. Unfortunately I got distracted when I first tore it down months ago and never measured the current to the pump diode.
The driver in the Viasho unit was found to output 1.0A. I added a resistor in parallel to another resistor on the driver and was able to up the current to 1.45A. I should have looked up some 808nm datasheets to try to find an optimum drive current for the Lasever module, but I'm lazy and just hooked up the driver circuit to the Lasever pump diode...
The next problem to tackle was the output. The Lasever module outputs a very thin, highly divergent beam. I experimented with a bunch of different lenses to correct the output, which turned out to be difficult.
I ended up choosing an AixiZ acrylic lens. I ground down the mount a bit so I could get the lens close enough to the output to give the right correction.
I used some glue to mount the lens to the module, as well as the aperture cap.
There's barely enough space for the module, bit it fits and now I have a working 473nm handheld! The output is fairly unstable and it modehops a bit, but I get roughly 60mW of blue output with the current configuration. The blue module is not optimally heatsinked in this build, but oh well.
I hope you enjoyed the thread!
Aaaand shameless plug for my giant FS thread: http://laserpointerforums.com/f39/updated-5-28-styropyro-s-liquidation-sale-96691.html
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