Review: 510nm Direct Green Diodes / Build Photos (DGH-N1, DGH-N2)

[Fiddy]

rhd & aryntha did you get the "value added feature: driver and/ or optics housing with lens" with your diode or just bare diode?

and does this describe your findings:

"They are 3.8mm devices, and operate at up to 160 mA, 7.3 volts, typical.
Divergence is 6 X 22 deg."

i assumed you used a aixiz 3 element lens too?

Fiddy.

 

[Blord]

Not hard at all. It'll just cost you ~$250 whenever they're back in stock at the supplier.

I want one
But the dollar/euro exchange rate is going so low, I have to wait till the euro is going up again !

 

[Bluefan]

At $250 I may even consider one, they're only getting more rare as time goes by.

 

[holokidd]

im excited to get one of these to test for holography. if you want to harvest them they could be found in these ................

Microvision: Investors - News Release

 

[qumefox]

These particular diodes are new, not harvests. The production pico projectors will also be using >520nm diodes and not these <520nm ones. And while probably available in the next few months, the direct green pico projectors aren't as of yet on the market.

 

[sopark4000]

im excited to get one of these to test for holography. if you want to harvest them they could be found in these ................

Microvision: Investors - News Release

" MicroVision plans to begin seeding early samples of the PicoP Gen2 HD laser display engine to selected OEMs for their own testing and evaluation starting in Q1 2012." They're not going to be available for a while. Also the diodes in these pointers weren't harvested from a projector.

EDIT- Qumefox beat me to it

 

[holokidd]

" They're not going to be available for a while. Also the diodes in these pointers weren't harvested from a projector.

EDIT- Qumefox beat me to it

True but i would much rather wait a couple months and get harvested diodes for less than $50 each (like the 445s did), beleve me there will be thousands of these diodes shortly avalable, so just stand by for a while or empty your pockets now .............

 

[Bluefan]

510nm is a color that is rather useless for display applications, I expect it's availability to increase VERY slow as the manufactoring process matures and real green is cheaply possible. When that is easily possible then the research areas or medical applications needing ~510nm light will create a slight demand for those diodes as cheaper substitute for rare wavelength DPSS lasers.

Won't do much price-wise for us though, I don't think the mentioned $250 won't come any lower. I'd want one for that money if possible before they are gone.

 

[sopark4000]

True but i would much rather wait a couple months and get harvested diodes for less than $50 each (like the 445s did), beleve me there will be thousands of these diodes shortly avalable, so just stand by for a while or empty your pockets now .............

Well this color wont ever be in a projector. Your estimate of a couple months is IMO way off. Also your price estimate of $50 is likely way off as well. There are 24 diodes in the K@$10 projectors. The source for these diodes is only going to be pico projectors with one green in them. The projectors will likely have a price tag of 300-400 dollars. But before they can go into the pico projectors the diodes need to among other things be able to do at least 100-150mW and emit a higher wavelength of green.

Don't get me wrong I am really hoping that this all happens soon and that someone uses a bunch of greens in a full size projector but direct green diode progress has historically been extremely slow and companies have been saying they are a year away from mass production direct greens for the past 5-6 years.

 

[Sullivaf]

..........

 

[holokidd]

Well this color wont ever be in a projector. Your estimate of a couple months is IMO way off. Also your price estimate of $50 is likely way off as well. The projectors will likely have a price tag of 300-400 dollars. But before they can go into the pico projectors the diodes need to among other things be able to do at least 100-150mW and emit a higher wavelength of green.

so if they wont use them in pico projectors, then what diodes were they talking about two days ago? (see link).
Microvision: Investors - News Release

Its kinda narrowminded to think these diodes wont drop in price (IMO), all other diodes have gone down this same path, why wouldnt these ?

aside from the green diode dont forget about the Red and blue ones contained in the pico too.
so for a couple hundred $$ youll get three SLM lasers putting out at least 50mw each......

that's a bargan based on todays market value .........

 

[qumefox]

520nm and up diodes will likely drop in price as pico projectors become available, though in $300 devices I doubt you'd see the price of the greens being much below $200.. For one. the projectors will only have one each of Red green and blue. And selling harvested diodes, the only real potential buyers are pointer builders and display people. This means that the low power reds wont be sellable for more than $5-$6.. nobody in their right mind would pay more than that (assuming they're 660) when LOC's are available cheap. If they're relatively high power 635nm, that changes things a bit but I still doubt they'd be sellable for more than $50 even then. The single mode blues.. People wouldn't buy them for more than they're already available for. ~$50 or so..

That, at best case, covers $100 of a $300 projector. Even if the sellers were selling the diodes at cost (not going to happen) Your looking at $200 for the green to cover the rest of the projector cost. More than likely they'll tack on a markup to to make some money for their labor.. so add $25-$50 to that and your back up to price we have now. And also, they'll be >520nm.. NOT the 510nm that these are.

 

[holokidd]

That, at best case, covers $100 of a $300 projector. Even if the sellers were selling the diodes at cost (not going to happen) .

i remember not too long ago an online seller was selling Brand New show wx for a 100Bucks each! Thats 33 dollars each in my book..........

Im not saying this will happen tomorrow but it will happen again.

 

[sopark4000]

so if they wont use them in pico projectors, then what diodes were they talking about two days ago? (see link).
Microvision: Investors - News Release

Its kinda narrowminded to think these diodes wont drop in price (IMO), all other diodes have gone down this same path, why wouldnt these ?

aside from the green diode dont forget about the Red and blue ones contained in the pico too.
so for a couple hundred $$ youll get three SLM lasers putting out at least 50mw each......

that's a bargan based on todays market value .........

Qumefox's post above this one answers your question. And the projectors they're talking about in your link are pico projectors that only have one green diode in them.
"the future of mobile projection technology with the new PicoP® Gen 2 HD laser display"

So like qumefox said until the price of picoprojectors themselves drops the price of direct green diodes wont drop. The only way they would drop in price would be the following
1. If someone can get bare diodes for a decent price without having to harvest them
2. If direct greens are used in a full sized projector (not likely any time soon)
3. If direct greens end up being used in some other piece of electronics

All of those are very big "ifs"

Number 1 isn't likely because companies hate selling small numbers of bare diodes. If you contact nichia and try to purchase 25 of there 445 diodes the price will be hundreds even thousands of dollars PER DIODE!
Number 2 isn't likely any time soon because compared to the current method for producing green in full sized projectors using green diodes would be both economically and mechanically unfeasible. Economically because the diodes are too expensive and mechanically because the diodes aren't powerful enough yet. Number 3 is a possibility but I don't really know of any other electronic components that need a green diode.

The price for them will drop at some point but it will most definitely not be in a time frame of months more like a time frame of years. Our best bet for a price drop would be if they end up in full sized projectors which will take a while.

 

[sopark4000]

i remember not too long ago an online seller was selling Brand New show wx for a 100Bucks each! Thats 33 dollars each in my book..........

Im not saying this will happen tomorrow but it will happen again.

Thats assuming that the direct green pico projectors actually end up being 300 dollars. I don't think they would go much higher than that but for all we know they could end up charging 400 at the initial release. In the end my message is this. Don't get your hopes up expecting $50 direct green diodes any time soon.

 

[rhd]

Here's the bottom line. If these end up in a multiple-diode-per-projector projector (like the KasEOs), then we'll see 445-esque pricing. But nobody is even talking about this, nobody is banking on it, nobody "needs" this. The near term (2012) is Picos all the way. That's the market.

If someone like KasEO adds these in bulk to a projector, it will be a few years off.

Pico harvesting may bring the price tag down, but you're still going to be looking at almost the full price of the Pico, since single-mode blues are dropping below $50 now, and the market for single-mode reds on their own (short of the HL63133DG) is pretty much nill now. So, expect the DGs to be somewhere around $75 under the price of the Pico. In other words, unless the Pico is dirt cheap (which the new "flagship" models from MicroVision et al will NOT be), don't expect price drops. Also, don't expect 510s, expect to be harvesting 520s (which visually will look almost indistinguishable from DPSS 532).