Continuous use laser

I am interested in a "continuous use" laser in a (somewhat) "compact" size---Arc LS or possibly even a Mega Micro size or thereabouts. I had an individual build me one into an LS shell some time ago however the electronics work was shoddy and "continuous use"--5 minutes or so at a time was and remains impossible. Ideas? I'd be interested in a stock item or, a custom....any interested builders out there for this job? By the way, for use as a pointer and nothing more.

Karl

call wicked lasers and tell them your issue

you need active cooling to run lasers for extended periods

My thought is to use <5mW of 635nm. This should be low power enough to allow for 5 minutes or so at a time easily if put into something as "massive" as an Arc LS or mega micro, and safe enough to use as a pointer for presentations and animal-person entertainment.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw2PITddSIo#t=16s)

By "continuous" you still mean battery powered, correct?

I think the OP means ~5 minutes at a time.

Yes, low power, battery-powered. ...." 'massive' as an Arc LS"--I'm presuming tongue in cheek....right??



Karl

Laser pointer is hard to fulfill continuous output. If for special use, you can take consider of making alignment laser with DC input or battery. This kind of laser device is fine to make a continuous operation.

Would you care to expand a bit on this Susan?


Karl

I think what Susan is trying to say is that there are lab style lasers with large heatsinks and active cooling, meant to handle continuous operation.

Also, my comment was partially tongue in cheek. Most <5mW pointers don't even have the diode heatsinked. Heck, some of them don't even use the metal TO56 case that most laser diodes use; rather the resonator chips are mounted directly on some FR4. You might want to just do some experimenting with a heatsink with similar mass to what you'd be able to fit in the intended host. Maybe even see how it does with just an aixiz module and no heatsink at <5mW output.