WTB Wicked Lasers Spyder Inferno

[Gryphon]

Probably a long shot but does anyone have a Wicked Lasers Spyder Inferno they would part with? I've got one of the older Kryptons (back when they were 532nm DPSS) a Lunar and an Arctic and I would like to complete the set with an Inferno. I know for true completion I would also need the 520nm Krypton and the much rarer 473nm Spyder that was only available before the 445nm diode craze.

Maybe one day I might grab a second Arctic and rebuild it with a NUMB07 like I have in my 2X 18650 host for a nice sky blue Spyder

If you've got a Wicked Laser that isn't one of the Spyders let me know, maybe we can work something out!

 

[Gryphon]

Well, I've had no luck finding an Inferno so I decided to take apart my Arctic to see if it could be made into an "Inferno"

Wicked Lasers used some very strong glue to hold the finned barrel on the host, but if you chuck the laser in a vise with some soft jaws and grab the finned section with a rubber padded clamp it can be twisted to break the glue free. After that you can use some thin needle nose plyers or small snap ring plyers to unscrew the cover on top of the module and then you can unscrew the module. Unscrewing the module twisted off the wires from the back of the diode but after soldering them back on it fired back up.

The driver has two small pots on it. The one closer to the end of the driver doesn't seem to do anything that I can notice from an operational standpoint. The other one however adjusts the output power when the laser in its "high power" setting.

With the original A140/M140 diode the "low" power setting produced 500mA and the adjustable current range on "high" was 550mA to 950mA. However, when I hooked up an Oclaro HL63193MG the driver was outputting 1.5A on the "low" setting. I suspected the much lower forward voltage of the red diode was the culprit, so I added two 1ohm resistors in series with the diode and that brought the adjustable current range in "high" power back down to where it was with the 445nm diode.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Oclaro's divergence so I'll probably end up swapping it with the Sharp GH0637AA2G before I reassemble the laser.

 

[Giannis_TDM]

Well, I've had no luck finding an Inferno so I decided to take apart my Arctic to see if it could be made into an "Inferno"

Wicked Lasers used some very strong glue to hold the finned barrel on the host, but if you chuck the laser in a vise with some soft jaws and grab the finned section with a rubber padded clamp it can be twisted to break the glue free. After that you can use some thin needle nose plyers or small snap ring plyers to unscrew the cover on top of the module and then you can unscrew the module. Unscrewing the module twisted off the wires from the back of the diode but after soldering them back on it fired back up.

The driver has two small pots on it. The one closer to the end of the driver doesn't seem to do anything that I can notice from an operational standpoint. The other one however adjusts the output power when the laser in its "high power" setting.

With the original A140/M140 diode the "low" power setting produced 500mA and the adjustable current range on "high" was 550mA to 950mA. However, when I hooked up an Oclaro HL63193MG the driver was outputting 1.5A on the "low" setting. I suspected the much lower forward voltage of the red diode was the culprit, so I added two 1ohm resistors in series with the driver and that brought the adjustable current range in "high" power back down to where it was with the 445nm diode.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Oclaro's divergence so I'll probably end up swapping it with the Sharp GH0637AA2G before I reassemble the laser.

Maybe the pot that you saw doing nothing was the one for the vF adjust.
The sharp diode has great divergence but dont push it past 1the 700mW

 

[Gryphon]

Maybe the pot that you saw doing nothing was the one for the vF adjust.
The sharp diode has great divergence but dont push it past 1the 700mW

That was my first thought as well, but sweeping the pot through its full range didnt appear to change anything, maybe I just need to experiment with it more.

I've got one build with the Sharp diode right now running at 650mW and it is fantastic.

 

[Gryphon]

Poor mans Inferno complete! It uses the gh0637aa2g diode set conservatively at 500mW with a G8 lens.