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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

My First Laser Build - Zippo Lighter

Joined
Jun 26, 2010
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Hey all! I've been promising pictures for the last month or so for my first laser build, housed in a Zippo lighter.

It's based off of Rog8811's Lighter build, but slightly different.

Here's the pictures!

Closed Casing:
closed.jpg


Open View. Wires slightly visible on the left, I'd be sad if you cut them :cryyy::
full.jpg


Side View, Push Button, Lens, Funky Heat Sink made of brass sheet metal; heat conducted by Arctic Silver thermal epoxy:
side.jpg


Out of the Case:
outcase.jpg


You can kind of see some wiring and where the driver is sitting here:
sideclose.jpg


Bottom View:
bottom.jpg


Battery Guts:
battery.jpg


Beam and Point Shot, No Smoke, In a dark room:
beampoint.jpg




Now one question... is it normal for the laser to spill light around the edges like this?

oddlight.jpg


oddlight2.jpg


I've tried swapping the lens out for the same type of lens and it does the same thing.



Hope you guys enjoyed checking out my build! I certainly enjoyed making it.

It's a PHR-803T Blu-Ray 405nm, and runs at about 100 mw. Battery life sucks, clocking in at about less than an hour.

The only complication I ran into while making it was blowing out a diode by not unloading the capacitor before hooking up the driver. I thought the same thing happened to my 2nd diode, and I was about to give up, but I came to realize that I just forgot to push the inside to the bottom of the casing and the negative contacts weren't touching.


Very special thanks to Morgan and Asherz for helping me when I had questions!
 
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zhouc1

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Aug 14, 2010
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hey
i think the ring of light is from light reflecting off the shiny metal screwy thing on top of the part were the flame used to come out... try coating it with some AR coating... non reflectant paint is good too

hope this helps
 
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
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Um. I think that 'shiny metal screwy thing' is the knurled adjusting ring that goes on an aixiz lens.

What kind of lens is it? I remember seeing something similar when playing with some of my 'wrong' aixiz 405-445 lenses that are coated for red. The singular actual blue coated one I got doesn't do it.

When you look at the normal room lighting reflecting off the lens, does it have a blue tint or a yellow tint?
 
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Joined
Jun 26, 2010
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Looking into the lens it looks like the light reflected is reddish/orange/yellow maybe? I don't see any blue.
It's the standard Aixiz lens that comes with the module when ordered on hightechdealz

Oddly enough I think the "odd light" as shown in the picture is perfectly lined up with what the diode light looks like if there was no lens at all while shining. Maybe there is light bleeding through somehow?
 
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
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Ah, I'm not sure what the normal acrylic lenses are coated for. Probably red would be my guess though but they may just have a generic broadband AR coating. You'll get more power using a glass lens AR coated for 405nm. It might solve your splash problem as well.
 




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