Review of the Tinker Lasers Valkyrie 488

[tinkertavernco]

Hmm, I wonder if they all use the same diode. One of my go-to visual effects is shining a laser into a big selenite crystal. With a single mode laser I get wicked speckle. With my Valkyrie.......might as well be a bright LED. Compare a good 532 DPSS green through a diffuser to a 445 multimode diode. Night and day difference.

The 488 diodes we use are all single mode so multimode characteristics can be ruled out. This is just speculation, but it may be due to the spectral line width. The 488 diodes we use are notably variable (they have been known to come up from 479nm all the way up to 496nm, along with even more spectacular occurrences like rare multiline diodes.)

My best guess is that the laser without the speckle emits a somewhat wider band of wavelengths.

 

[WizardG]

The 488 diodes we use are all single mode so multimode characteristics can be ruled out. This is just speculation, but it may be due to the spectral line width. The 488 diodes we use are notably variable (they have been known to come up from 479nm all the way up to 496nm, along with even more spectacular occurrences like rare multiline diodes.)

My best guess is that the laser without the speckle emits a somewhat wider band of wavelengths.

I'll ask my buddy in the lab @ work to spectro the thing for me. Gonna cost me a six pack though

 

[paul1598419]

The 488 diodes we use are all single mode so multimode characteristics can be ruled out. This is just speculation, but it may be due to the spectral line width. The 488 diodes we use are notably variable (they have been known to come up from 479nm all the way up to 496nm, along with even more spectacular occurrences like rare multiline diodes.)

My best guess is that the laser without the speckle emits a somewhat wider band of wavelengths.

You are correct about multimode diodes. They don't give the amount of speckle one would expect from a laser.

 

[WizardG]

My buddy in the lab confirms this is kind of a weird diode. Below 65 degrees F it puts out something very close to a single mode beam, speckle and all. But as it warms up it's linewidth gets bigger and bigger. I'm still looking up exactly what this means but my lab guy says at 95 degrees F this laser has a linewidth of just under 40 Ghz. I guess it loses its speckle when warm not due to being multimode but because it gets less and less monochromatic as it heats up.

Still a gorgeous color. No regrets! Thanks Tinker.

 

[Nuguns]

I just put together a now broken, 488nm pen which was under driven putting out like 1mw. I was pressing the button a lot steadily and even tho irrelevant being under driven made it score a 486nm or less wavelength which was reallllly pretty. As I turned the pot like 1-5/10ths of a mm at a time while pressing the button, I got it to like 10-15mw.... ish? and the speckle was so Incredible! It looked just like a dpss. It had so much sparkle.

So my conclusion is get the heat sinking over done for small builds to hopefully keep the speckle. Go crazy with it

If anyone cares to know, its possible to make them very under driven and low power