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- Jan 20, 2008
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So it seems like I've been working on this thing forever now... It's been a real uphill battle. It seems at every turn this project wants to test my patience... I've gone through (off the top of my head) 1x SF-AW210 bluray diode (6x), 1x LG-BH08 bluray diode (8x), 1x PHR-803T bluray diode, 2x long open can red diodes, a 100mW rayfoss green module, and a half a dozen LM317T regulators. I've had to realign my mirror twice now, and will probably have to do it again. Maybe I'm clumsy, maybe I'm cursed, but either way, my perseverance has paid off. I now have this thing at least working in some form, in a portable enclosure, running off batteries.
To celebrate, I figured I'd show a few pics of the progress along the way.
Here's a pic of the first time it went live, with all three lasers installed and aligned. I was VERY happy that day. Too bad every module in the thing has died since then, and every driver has been replaced since then.
...And, my first beamshot with this thing:
Here's a pic of the first time I got all the pieces together and working.. The enclosure is an old soldering iron stand I had laying around. It works well because it's relatively small, fireproof (I'm always paranoid about lithium polymer batteries), and it's got some nice weight to it so when I add the spiros it won't vibrate off the desk. Ignore the current acrylic in there, that's already been replaced, but I don't have pics yet.
Here it is, mostly assembled... This isn't going to be its permanent configuration, I'm going to be tweaking the enclosure a lot more from now on. I just have things held in place temporarily with hot glue so I can play with it for the time being. Eventually I'll be adding a PIC or AMTEL microcontroller to do some PWM stuff as well as monitoring the voltage of the LiPo so I don't over-discharge it... I also haven't connected the fan yet, and it's becoming clear it's entirely necessary. My regulator heatsinks get up to 80c in under 30 seconds.
Here it is with the lid off, showing off its guts... As you can see from the metal grill, this was a very well used soldering iron stand. I should probably clean that flux gunk off at some point.
Here's a pic of the white output:
...The yellow:
...The cyan:
...And, the magenta:
(the violet in this pic is understated, as at this point I was using my degraded 8x, which is now dimmer than a PHR)
Here's another beam shot:
And finally, here's a shot of it burning some electrical tape. Click the image for the full size pic, which I think makes a nice wallpaper.
PS: Just got my first DSLR recently, a (very) used Nikon D70. Still figuring out all the settings. I know some of these pics could look a lot better, but I refuse to use the "auto" mode if I can help it.
Thanks to ImageShack® - Online Media Hosting whose free image hosting I'm abusing heavily in this thread.
To celebrate, I figured I'd show a few pics of the progress along the way.
Here's a pic of the first time it went live, with all three lasers installed and aligned. I was VERY happy that day. Too bad every module in the thing has died since then, and every driver has been replaced since then.
...And, my first beamshot with this thing:
Here's a pic of the first time I got all the pieces together and working.. The enclosure is an old soldering iron stand I had laying around. It works well because it's relatively small, fireproof (I'm always paranoid about lithium polymer batteries), and it's got some nice weight to it so when I add the spiros it won't vibrate off the desk. Ignore the current acrylic in there, that's already been replaced, but I don't have pics yet.
Here it is, mostly assembled... This isn't going to be its permanent configuration, I'm going to be tweaking the enclosure a lot more from now on. I just have things held in place temporarily with hot glue so I can play with it for the time being. Eventually I'll be adding a PIC or AMTEL microcontroller to do some PWM stuff as well as monitoring the voltage of the LiPo so I don't over-discharge it... I also haven't connected the fan yet, and it's becoming clear it's entirely necessary. My regulator heatsinks get up to 80c in under 30 seconds.
Here it is with the lid off, showing off its guts... As you can see from the metal grill, this was a very well used soldering iron stand. I should probably clean that flux gunk off at some point.
Here's a pic of the white output:
...The yellow:
...The cyan:
...And, the magenta:
(the violet in this pic is understated, as at this point I was using my degraded 8x, which is now dimmer than a PHR)
Here's another beam shot:
And finally, here's a shot of it burning some electrical tape. Click the image for the full size pic, which I think makes a nice wallpaper.
PS: Just got my first DSLR recently, a (very) used Nikon D70. Still figuring out all the settings. I know some of these pics could look a lot better, but I refuse to use the "auto" mode if I can help it.
Thanks to ImageShack® - Online Media Hosting whose free image hosting I'm abusing heavily in this thread.