Portable FAP Red

[Alaskan]

Arrrg! I've bought most of my FAP's from Tony, all of mine were good.

Not to hijack the thread, but thought I would add something which I believe will be of interest to you, here are more photo's of my FAP output using a 25 dollar used ebay CCD camera with its IR filter window removed, still working on putting it into a permanent portable setup.

808nm IR - Below, this photo' shows the FAP800 SMA connector output without a lens on it, you can see it spreads fairly rapidly.

In the following photo, you can see how much the divergence is reduced by using a 12.4mm diameter PCX collimating lens. Although only about half of the available lens aperture/diameter is used, the collimated beam is far tighter.

The divergence is terribly wide at more than ten times that of a cheap 532nm laser pointer. Below, is a photo showing how quickly the beam expands using a small 12mm diameter collimating lens with the beam exiting the lens at about 6mm diameter, if that.

Below is a video of a ~900 dollar 5 watt IR laser where he shows pointing it at people as a spotlight, I'm very uneasy about the idea of pointing a IR laser at anyone, even at a distance as he does with the beam expanded so much.

 

[RedCowboy]

Great pics, but that divergence is wide.
I'm thinking single emitter, they are available.
This is the same one O-Like sells, the raw diodes are available somewhere, as long as they have a FAC lens which I'm sure they do, things will be so much easier.

I'm looking for a 50W single emitter, no doubt MM but with a FAC, I can take it from there.

20W 810nm IR Laser Illuminator for CCTV Camera 300M Long Night Vision Distance | eBay


p.s. Why you may ask do I want that, simple, wood burning art.
The natural tremble in our hands make the most beautiful " natural art " at the edges of lines burned into wood, it's an abstract yet physical beauty that can only be captured in wood. The essence of nature and gods design magnified and frozen like a moment of time in charred wood, it's truly amazing, those with a discerning eye for art can fully appreciate it, but even the novice can see the beauty. The further from the wood palate the more magnified the edges will be, even the most steady handed artist will leave a unique signature.

 

[Alaskan]

I'm guessing Mike just loves to see the POWER of this kid of IR laser burn stuff into a crisp very quickly, for myself, it's more the love of optics, just a challenge... that and a weapon in case of a alien invasion, I suppose God knows, we can't use them against human beings without being slammed in jail, regardless of the situation, better to use a bullet.

 

[RedCowboy]

Oh without a doubt, a near ir laser is much to dangerous to bystanders to be used as a defensive implement, but for art in a safe controlled environment they will reveal such detail, I would really love to do metal art, but I will need a lot more highly focused power, but the art will be amazing.

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

You can do nice metal art with a hand held 20 Amp Plasma cutter. They are amazing!!!

Chris -- I see that you had good luck with that "factory" lens assembly. Mine is smoked up from the laser burn out. You may be right that a PCC lens might be the way to go to keep the expander short.
HMike

PS: SpaceX didn't shoot off their BIG Falcon 9 today.

 

[Alaskan]

So far, I've had no problem with the factory lens which uses a plano-convex in it, flat side towards the laser output. If you tried your home made bi-convex, or double-convex lens with the FAP, I'm wondering if it reflected right back into a point into the FAP output, due to the back side being curved and from that damaging the ferule, later failing when using the factory lens?

Edit: Thought I'd add this link to a short video shot with my iPhone showing the fibers inside the FAP800 ferrule. The voltage was set low to keep the laser from putting out much power and destroying my phones camera. This link might not work for everyone, not sure:

http://vid853.photobucket.com/album...trim.C33A61A2-C770-4F83-A47E-A8E7ADE2C5A4.mp4

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

The modules which got damaged were using that small black adapter with the single PCX lens. Mine didn't get burned until I hit about 25 input amps.

The picture doesn't work for me - I get some kind of music file.
HMike

 

[Alaskan]

I don't understand the problem with that lens, I use the same model and can push 50 amps through the diode and no issues. You might need Quicktime to view that MPEG video file I linked to in my last post here.

 

[Cyparagon]

I'm looking for a 50W single emitter

I'm pretty sure those don't exist.

 

[Alaskan]

Maybe someday they will become something we can afford to buy, Alfalight has developed a Surface-Emitting Distributed Feedback lasers. The technology allows a single laser diode to replace many of today's more complex solid state lasers in LIO applications. The highest-recorded continuous output power from a single emitter - 73 watts.

 

[RedCowboy]

A row of elements can be used with a FAC and 800 and 1000w MM multi element pumps are used with fiber lasers in industry right now, they have even done away with the Bragg reflectors and use a seed pump to control wavelength, it's advancing all the time.

But as for collimated stacks.

HERE is a 400w water cooled stack with a collimated beam.


This is a basic overview but if you have not seen others I have posted it shows some basics. I can't wait until we can get these used but still functional.

This guy has some interesting videos, I want to try his anodizing method, anyway here is his 60W ir, I'm not sure if its a stack or bundle, looks like a stack because of the Cyl lens. I will have to read and see if he shows what it is.

 

[planters]

I just noticed this thread. Interesting and frightening. You can indeed see 808nm light. When I built a DPSS laser I powered it with a pair of 14 W, fiber coupled, 808nm diode modules. The 200um fiber had large divergence (I didn't measure it), but it was easy to manage for near field vanadate pumping. Even at 1/4 W, the tiny red spot could be seen easily when it hit the aluminum wall of the crystal holder. This was a peak around the goggles when I knew where to look and I knew it was hitting a particular matte surface. The eye's sensitivity at 808nm is approx 1/68,000 that of its sensitivity at 555nm.

I have another thought to reduce divergence drastically. If you are willing to remain IR, then using the module to pump a YAG or vanadate crystal can be very efficient at around 33%. The real difficulty with DPSS is the doubling, it also reduces the beam quality as well as being the power limiting bottleneck. Divergence limited beams are possible and optics for 1064nm are as available as those for 808nm. Just a thought.

Do you know that there is no diode destroying V spike when the regulator is powered up or down?

 

[DashApple]

This guy has some interesting videos, I want to try his anodizing method, anyway here is his 60W ir, I'm not sure if its a stack or bundle, looks like a stack because of the Cyl lens. I will have to read and see if he shows what it is.

I believe Its a standard 19 emitter CCP diode inside the housing with lenses to flatter and correct the output to a thin rectangle , There was a picture of the inside floating around somewhere .

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

The FAP series has 19 diodes in a bar brought to a "spot" by fibers.

Chris -- I got the small "factory" lens assembly apart. I unscrewed it. The PCX lens is burned somehow. I can't clean the fog off with cleaner or acetone. I think that the AR coating is burned up. And at only 25 Amps !!!!
Hmike

 

[Alaskan]

Too bad I broke the lens in one of mine trying to get it out so I could replace it with a concave expander lens. Don't know why it happened, I don't have issues with mine here at all. Good thing you got both that last FAP and the lens cheap, but a loss either way of course.

 

[DashApple]

Referring to the video link above my last post -

Its not from the FAP diode family , its one of these , No fibres; all lenses -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MebPpsr6AiE