The Red Menace

[Dvorhagen]

Just finished testing my new LOC LPC-815 on my test driver. It is a thing of beauty! There's something pretty damn nice about lighting a piece of flash paper from literally across the room with a beam of light!! So. Very. Red!

Should I be able to get that sort of range on a PHR at 125mA? I know the red is running at twice the input current, but I wonder if maybe I haven't been setting my PHRs in their modules properly...I can never focus them farther than 2' away...

Anyway, the power of the LPC is amazing! It was even worth the 1.5 hours it took to pry the thing out of its heatsink

 

[lasersbee]

Lets see what you built....

Jerry

 

[KiLLrB]

Lets see what you built....

Jerry

holy crap like the smilie lol.

But seriously pics would be nice

 

[Dvorhagen]

Ah - I see your point. I just soldered the diode to the DDL circuit I've been using as a testbed, so it's not built into anything cool yet -- I wanted to make sure I hadn't killed the diode during the difficult, metal-twisting harvest.

YouTube - LOC LPC

I thought it was LED'd, at first, but then (when I remembered to adjust the pot), kaboom!

 

[KiLLrB]

:gj:

BTW where is a good place to get flash paper?

 

[Dvorhagen]

I used to manage the equipment for a company that did after-school science programs for elementary school kids, so I just nicked it from them. I'm running low at this point, though... It looks like you can order it from several places online, however. I know that around $10 for a sheet of 4 9X9" pieces is a decent price for the stuff.

 

[Meatball]

You can also make the stuff yourself... if you're comfortable working with 6 mol sulfuric acid...

 

[Dvorhagen]

Yeah, I think it's just a matter of treating tissue paper in a 1:1 sulfuric/nitric acid bath, then washing it and air-drying it. I've seen this recipe being kicked around:

How to Make Flash Paper | eHow.com

..but I make absolutely no claims to its effectiveness. Sounds dangerous, in any case. Though probably less dangerous than playing with 16 Molar nitric acid

 

[KiLLrB]

interesting might have to try that.

 

[Dvorhagen]

I finally finished my LPC-815 build. I managed to shrink my driver down to a fraction of its former size (my terrible, terrible soldering has improved greatly :undecided: ) and fit the whole thing in a small project box. Certainly doesn't compare to some of the things I've seen here, but I'm rather proud of it. It's only running off 250mA, because I don't have a heatsink and I'm a pansy about pushing my diode too hard .

I like the simplicity of the single rocker switch on the front. Also it makes a very satifying *clack* when you hit it! Anyway, I play with it by looking at the dot indirectly through my phone, and I thought it's austerity made it look rather Mac-like, so I put this on the bottom:

I dub it: The Red Delicous

 

[photonaholic]

nice looking build!

 

[Dvorhagen]

Thanks! It fits in the hand perfectly, it's got a nice weight to it, and it delivers quite a punch at range. Balloons town wide will learn to fear me.

 

[Greenmechanic]

:gj:

BTW where is a good place to get flash paper?

Here's a good place. Best quality paper. 245 microns thick.(.010")
Fire Magic Tricks Learn to control Fire like a real magician
I believe it's on sale right now. (buy the 8" X 9" and cut it up=cheaper that way)
Also check out their Flash Cotton.
It's 3X as powerful as the paper. A wad the size of a pea will blow a plastic 20oz soda bottle 10'-12' high.
Caution:For professional use only
BTW: Very nice, Dvorhagen Good job!!

 

[Meatball]

Be careful with the duty cycle on that LPC. The front part of the aixis module will get the warmest, fastest. It doesn't look like you have much heatsinking on the front, so... please be careful.

:beer:

 

[Dvorhagen]

Yeah, since I settled on this "design" for my current generation of lasers, I've been making sure to run them for less than 30 seconds at a time. Hoping that's good enough, since they're not really heatsink'd...Well, in the worst case, they're pretty cheap diodes.