my handheld TEC-cooled ML501P73 almost finished

[deadshadow]

hello everyone i had a unique idea about 4 months ago to make a handheld tec-cooled red laser,it took that long to think,draw and finally gather all the stuff i needed to complete it. its almost ready except some visual fixes so i have to share it with you

i uploaded the images on the forum and sadly it only let me upload 8 photos(i needed at least 10)so maybe i'll post some more images as comments.

this is how it look like finished,its 32x10x10cm, preety big huh:evil:
it has 3 switches and 2 monitor panels.the 1st switch is for monitoring,it powers up the fan the thermometer and the voltage meter.
the 2nd swich(blue) powers the tec and the 3rd one(red) powers the diode.

now lets have a look under the hud :yh:
this is the diode,heatsink,tec and fan just before the installation,it has dual drives to get the total of 1A on the diode.

this is how the wooden host looks like just with the tec battery pack installed. it has 4 paraller and 3 series total of 12 18650 batteries.

here is how i fitted all the swiches and meters on the top

you can see how messed up looks like after all the wiring:crackup:
just to mention that the 2 batteries on the middle is 2 18650s paraller for powering the diode.also in the back you can see 4 glued conectors which is used to recharge each series of batteries individual.

now lets go to the readings. 1100mw with G2 and 1A current :eg:

and 930mw with a 2element red lens for a bit better beam.

and one beamshot

lastly i want to use some stucco-putty on some spots and finally to paint the host.
this was fun to build laser from the scratch and im completly satisfied with the results :thanks:

 

[deadshadow]

3 more images as promised.this is how it looks like from the back,front and when it is powered on

 

[Alaskan]

Nice work thank you for sharing, love photo's. TEC solely for long duty cycle, like 100%?

E: I went and looked at the specs for the ML501P73 laser diode, it says 500 mw CW, is that what you were after? Pushing it much harder? Double the CW rating is very impressive! Wow...

 

[deadshadow]

thanks Alaskan yes i can run it with 100% duty cycle but what i wanted to achive is to swift a bit the wavelengh lower and at the same time when tec is on diode gives around 150-200mw boost in power on the same current(1A).
those diodes are very rubust and i have seen people here pushing them up to 1.3-1.4A.but with a tec cooling with only 1A i can reach the same output as running it at 1.3-1.4A.
maybe after some time i could push it more to see the highest output i could get :drool:

 

[Alaskan]

Sure beats the 700mw rated Oclaro, most pointers using that are just under, or a bit over 1000 mw. I wonder if the WL is shifted some, can you see a difference?

 

[deadshadow]

i can't see the difference but maybe i could if i compared it side by side with another same power red build.i couldn't even see the difference in 532-520 until i saw them side by side and the difference was very obvious.

yea mitsubishi is better than oclaro although is rated higher

 

[BobMc]

Wow! Looks like one labor of love. Well done deadshadow. Very very nice :drool:

Love the pics, :kewlpics:

 

[Alaskan]

Yes, nice work. I now wonder how many other red diodes might be able to be pushed to double their CW ratings if cooled.

 

[lasersbee]

Nice job on your TEC cooled Laser build...

@Alaskan... DTR pushed that LD to just
over 1.2W with a G2 lens at ~1.9A...
https://sites.google.com/site/dtrlpf/home/diodes/mitsubishi-635nm-500mw-diodes

For the same price as the 700mW Oclaro...
this one shows better test results on DTR's
website....

Jerry

 

[deadshadow]

thanks bob and lasersbee i apriciate it. another thing i have to do is a nice end for focus ring for easier focusing.

i bet it could hit 1.5w if i pushed it to 1.3A(or very close to it)

 

[lasersbee]

thanks bob and lasersbee i apriciate it. another thing i have to do is a nice end for focus ring for easier focusing.

i bet it could hit 1.5w if i pushed it to 1.3A(or very close to it)

I would test the LD without the TEC 'ON' at 1A.
and then do the same test with the TEC 'ON' to
see the actual power difference that the TEC
makes....

Jerry

 

[Alaskan]

Do it! Do you have another diode if it dies? I'd pay for a replacement diode to see how well it performs at 1.5 watts out, if it will do that much.

 

[lasersbee]

I would do the TEC 'ON/OFF' test before the
1.5W Test... But that's just me...:yh:

Jerry

 

[Alaskan]

The information Jerry is looking for on the output with, and without, TEC cooling is really more interesting to me too. You can check the current knee of the diode vs power out by slowly ramping up the current to see if the output keeps increasing or not. No sense just upping the current in one big jump which might burn it out.

I was just looking at the spec sheet, the minimum divergences are 1 and 25 degrees for each axis. I missed that earlier and am very surprised to see one axis has such a low divergence, that 1 degree figure for the raw uncollimated output is amazing. Can you pleaseeee check the divergence in both axis for me and report on it?

Edit: Just checking the ratio of the smaller side of the beam to the larger will tell me what I want to know, divergence figures not needed. I'm hoping you find a ratio of 1 to 25 but not expecting it because the lower divergence diodes might not be very common. Most of us don't want the ratios to be that different, want them as close together to one another as possible, but I have another application I'd like to have a diode with uber low divergence on one axis for. To date, I have not seen a diode that that low of a divergence on one axis.

 

[deadshadow]

about the testing,sure i will try both with tec on-off and then i'll try to raise the current to try to get 1.5w.i'll post the results here. i'll test it now :wave:

edit:i did a quick test without the tec cooling turned on and the power is around 880mw on room temp and slight warm diode. now i'll test it on higher current


this is the reading i got at 1.4A with the tec on.but i'll repeat the test because the tec battery pack was bit low

 

[Alaskan]

You are blowing my mind with that result. Huh? I didn't really think you could get that kind of power out.