PLEASE HELP IM NEW :)

[GODSPD]

Hi All,

I have several question that i know for sure someone on here could help me out with... so ill get started:

Question 1,
What matter or medium decides on the colour a laser can produce? why are colours other than red more expensive?

Question 2,
What makes a burning laser? is it the amount of power, energy, going into the diode that makes it burn? for example a 1Watt (400mw red, 300mw green, and 300mw blue) laser used in a club, can that burn? and if the colours are mixed would then the total output be 1000mw in a white beam? And compare that to a diode from a dvd burner....

Question 3,
I want to make my own blue laser pointer, i have been reading several posts already and that gave me some ideas, i would like to use the ps3 diode, so how much mw max can i obtain from it without killing it? and will the beam be visible during day or night without smoke?

Questions 4,
Where is the best place to buy parts?

Question 5,
What is the laser class rating all about? eg, Class IIIb laser... and so on, i wanted to know what these classifications mean...

Thank you for your help

 

[BlueFusion]

thats a lot of questions. I will get started answering in a sec edit this post.

edit: here.

Question 1,
What matter or medium decides on the colour a laser can produce? why are colours other than red more expensive?

The laser die itself does. A green laser is made by optically converting the wavelength of 808nm infrared laser, to 1064nm then doubled to 532nm. Green laser diodes do not exist, but red, infrared, and violet are readily available, and blue ones exist but are expensive.

Question 2,
What makes a burning laser? is it the amount of power, energy, going into the diode that makes it burn? for example a 1Watt (400mw red, 300mw green, and 300mw blue) laser used in a club, can that burn? and if the colours are mixed would then the total output be 1000mw in a white beam? And compare that to a diode from a dvd burner....

The power output total, a mW is a mW no matter the colour. It is the optical output of the diode that matters, which is loosely related to power input.

Question 3,
I want to make my own blue laser pointer, i have been reading several posts already and that gave me some ideas, i would like to use the ps3 diode, so how much mw max can i obtain from it without killing it? and will the beam be visible during day or night without smoke?

You can get about 15mW out of a bluray diode safely. You might be able to see the beam at night, but probably not during the day.

Questions 4,
Where is the best place to buy parts?

Depends what you want. Most things, http://sales.stonetek.org is good. If you want a ps3 sled (with diode) then psxboy.com is good, or one of the group buys here.

Question 5,
What is the laser class rating all about? eg, Class IIIb laser... and so on, i wanted to know what these classifications mean...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety#Classification should answer that.

 

[Things]

Question 1:
I'm not exactly sure of the dies, but i do know that some lasers (such as green, yellow, blue etc) use a pump diode(high powered IR) that shoots a invisible laser beam into some crystals, which it is then converted to green yellow or whatever. The crystals are rare, s they cost more to produce those lasers.
Question 2:
The burning is determind by the mw output, for example, any laser over 100mw should be able to burn, no matter what colour it is. Yes that club laser will burn. Combining beams will get a greater mw output.
Quetsion 3:
A Blu-ray diode can be used up to about 10mw safely, over that and you risk killing it. The beam would only just be visible during the day, if you look down its path. and it should be somewhat visible at night.
Question 4:
http://sales.stonetek.org sells DVD diodes, drivers, aixiz modules, lots of good laser stuff.
Question 5:
Have a search around on wikipedia for the laser classes, they are proportional to power in mw.
Hope that helps

 

[senkat]

you can try this one but the fbi mite come after you!!! so be very careful!! ;D

 

[me_too_lazy]

thats a lot of questions. I will get started answering in a sec edit this post.

edit: here.

Question 1,
What matter or medium decides on the colour a laser can produce? why are colours other than red more expensive?

The laser die itself does. A green laser is made by optically converting the wavelength of 808nm infrared laser, to 1064nm then doubled to 532nm. Green laser diodes do not exist, but red, infrared, and violet are readily available, and blue ones exist but are expensive.

Question 2,
What makes a burning laser? is it the amount of power, energy, going into the diode that makes it burn? for example a 1Watt (400mw red, 300mw green, and 300mw blue) laser used in a club, can that burn? and if the colours are mixed would then the total output be 1000mw in a white beam? And compare that to a diode from a dvd burner....

The power output total, a mW is a mW no matter the colour. It is the optical output of the diode that matters, which is loosely related to power input.

Question 3,
I want to make my own blue laser pointer, i have been reading several posts already and that gave me some ideas, i would like to use the ps3 diode, so how much mw max can i obtain from it without killing it? and will the beam be visible during day or night without smoke?  

You can get about 15mW out of a bluray diode safely. You might be able to see the beam at night, but probably not during the day.

Questions 4,
Where is the best place to buy parts?

Depends what you want. Most things, http://sales.stonetek.org is good. If you want a ps3 sled (with diode) then psxboy.com is good, or one of the group buys here.

Question 5,
What is the laser class rating all about? eg, Class IIIb laser... and so on, i wanted to know what these classifications mean...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety#Classification should answer that.

how did you manage to post 200 times in a day and a half...

 

[SteelRain]

What matter or medium decides on the colour a laser can produce?

The color is decided by the wavelength of light outputted. The spectrum goes from the high 400's to about 700 give or take. Thats what we can SEE. It starts at 400's which is deep violet, continues to blue, green, yellow, orange, then red. Kind of like the reverse of a rainbow.

The diode usually controls what color. A red diode will usually give you 650nm worth of light. The "Blue Ray" will give you about 405.......

why are colours other than red more expensive?

Red diodes are readily available in our society. Almost every DVD burner will have a powerful red diode. This means that the large companies have to make them cheap, which equals us getting them cheaper.

The new diodes being researched are the blue ray diodes, which emit a nice violet dot. Even the higher end companies are having trouble making these at cost effective prices. Thats why the technology is hard to get, and the diode alone can get as steep as $100 bucks. Wicked still sells their blue ray for thousands, even know the technology ha gotten cheaper.

The greens work by getting an IR pump diode and then doubling the frequency from 1024 to 532 through a KTP crystal. It basically cuts the wavelength in half.

What makes a burning laser? is it the amount of power, energy, going into the diode that makes it burn? for example a 1Watt (400mw red, 300mw green, and 300mw blue) laser used in a club, can that burn? and if the colours are mixed would then the total output be 1000mw in a white beam? And compare that to a diode from a dvd burner....

The way something burns will depend on a lot of factors.

These include the mW (Or W) the laser emits. Also the distance from the aperture, the color of the item, and the beam diameter matters as well.

For instance, you could have a 500mW laser trying to burn a white piece of leather from 20 feet away with a beam diameter of 3mm with horrible divergence. It probably wouldnt even smoke. but you could have a 50mW laser smoke a black piece of leather from closer up.

But assuming the other facors beside the mW's are all the same, then yes, the mW is basically what determines what burns or not. At 50mW youll start to see smoke on black leather. 75 you should be able to cut tape pretty easily-95 youll light matches atleast........


The sony DVD burner diodes as seen in KipKays video probably have a max output of 200mW. But most run it at around 150 or so, so the diode isnt burnt out.

I want to make my own blue laser pointer, i have been reading several posts already and that gave me some ideas, i would like to use the ps3 diode, so how much mw max can i obtain from it without killing it?

The "blue ray" diode isnt really blue at all. Its a 405nm diode which emits a VIOLET light. So really, your paying for a purple laser. It looks cool as hell-specially if your using it for special effects like a ray gun or something. But dont expect to get a super high powered blue.

Real blue is at around 473nm's.

will the beam be visible during day or night without smoke?

During day? Probably not. you may see a small faint violet beam during light time with some humidity but without smoke its hardly visible. The most you will get is around 25mW providing you really turn up the diode and risk blowing it......

Where is the best place to buy parts?

Senkats store has everything youll need to build basic red burner. You can simply buy the diode already in the housing and jut add a circuit yourself and it will burn.

What is the laser class rating all about? eg, Class IIIb laser... and so on, i wanted to know what these classifications mean...

This is basically how they classify power. Anything under 5mW is class IIIa-from 5-500is IIIb.......


The "legal" limit in the USA is 5mW

 

[GODSPD]

Thank you all for the help, now i have just 1 last question...

What do i have to do to make my own blue ray laser pointer? where is the best place to find the diode? i had a look on ebay and they start from around 50$, once i get the diode what else do i need in terms of electrical parts such as resistors and so forth? i would like to get the most safe power out of it, so from what i understand it is around 15mw? would i need to run it of 1 or 2 AA, or AAA batteries? and i would also require a lens? Is there maybe a DIY guide somewhere on making a blue ray laser pointer?

And i also wish to build a really hi mw laser pointer what kind of diode do i need and where can i get it from?

 

[Razako]

You can legally own >5 mw in the USA if they have a 5 point safety system approved by the FDA. Of course it isn't really enforced unless the cops catch you doing something stupid with it.

 

[chido]

Thank you all for the help, now i have just 1 last question...

What do i have to do to make my own blue ray laser pointer? where is the best place to find the diode? i had a look on ebay and they start from around 50$, once i get the diode what else do i need in terms of electrical parts such as resistors and so forth? i would like to get the most safe power out of it, so from what i understand it is around 15mw? would i need to run it of 1 or 2 AA, or AAA batteries? and i would also require a lens? Is there maybe a DIY guide somewhere on making a blue ray laser pointer?

And i also wish to build a really hi mw laser pointer what kind of diode do i need and where can i get it from?

Well I don't know a lot about the blue-rays, but I know that it's ok to use a normal 9v battery as the diode takes very little current.
But I do know about red, you can get a red diode installed in an aixiz housing here:
http://sales.stonetek.org/ldi.html
Here's a long thread on how to build the driver:
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1185701612
And here's a graph of the diode's performance made by Hemlock Mike:
(note, the diode I listed above is the sony one in the graph)

I hope this helps, and if you want to build a really high powered laser you could try IR diodes, but they're more dangerous since you can barely see the light, plus their divergence sucks and they'd only be good for burning up close.

 

[SteelRain]

Blu rays, i believe, run off a high voltage, so you can pretty much use a 9 volt battery i believe, Check with someone whose built one first, though.


You can get the blue ray diodes here:
http://pay.lasingpix.com/gpay-bluray.html

You get the entire assembly, so you will need to know how to extract the diode from it. youll have to do it GENTLY so you dont break the diode


for the burning one, youll need a sony red diode. It outpousts <200mW. You can buy one here:
http://sales.stonetek.org/ldi.html

You can buy the diodes alone or them preinstalled in the diode housing unit you will need.

You will also need to build a driver to regulate current on the diode.
This topic should be good:
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1185701612

But, heres a video you can follow along with:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xz4v8g6Y4mI

good luck

 

[mliptack]

The 405nm diodes do use a higher voltage but a 9v direct to the diode will burn it out. There are a few electronic driver kits you can buy on eBay. Or ask Dr.Lava, he's got a pretty nice driver available for these diodes.

Removing them from the sleds is a pretty easy procedure, and once you have the sled in your hand it will only take 2-3 minutes to remove it.

Just one word of caution. It can be pretty difficult to press the 405nm diode into a 5.6mm casing. I had to really scrape off the excess glue and I also sanded down the inside of the Aixiz housing.

-Max

 

[BlueFusion]

actually, pay.lasingpix.com is Daedal's group buy site.
Do not use it at the moment as he is not currently running a group buy and you will probably get your money refunded
Aside from that, the advice the others gave you is good and you'd do well to follow it you can easily end up with some beautiful lasers, provided you read up first and take your time.

 

[wooooooolazer]

dont try to get 15mw from it you will more than likely kill it within the first week, use a lm317 circuit with a 33ohm resistor which you should get about 9mw or so from the diode.

...lazer... ;D ;D ;D