DIY red laser info !

Hey - for those of you into doing the modding for the red lasers, Aixiz is on ebay now, selling the housings for $2.00 each ! That is AWESOME ! They are like the Dr-Lava group buy housings - with the little metal turny thing (highly technical term) on the front for easy focusing !

Here's the item number in case anyone wants them : 110100968954

I thought it was a sweeeet deal !

SK --

Is that a glass lens ??

Mike

No Still plastic

I've emailed him a few times trying to find out how much he would charge for just the module no diode and with glass optics and he's not returned any of my emails. I'm hopin to find a unit that doesn't need to be focussed and uses more than one lens. but alas I fear that it's a hopeless cause. Still, Not a bad price for the modules on ebay. Is that the buy it now option?

Yup - sure is ! at $2.00 a pop, it was too hard for me to resist - so I bought a couple of the lots....now I jsut gotta find more diodes to slap in there !

Have ya looked at my parts? Big mess that it is!!! I would like those back if ya can't get anything to work although now that I've delved into making my own laser I have no doubt whatsoever that you will suceed resoundingly. Can't believe I was gonna toss that stuff.

How high a mw will a palstic lens handle? 50? 100? 300? 500?

I'd love to find a nice 300mw red diode to slap in one of those heh (hell 500mw would be a dream com true! lol)

I would like to know as well... trying to find a shell for 2 IR diodes ~500mW and 1 red diode.

Thanx;
DDL

Oh, this would be better than anything else for the PS3 diode!!

Off to eBay I am then...

Thanx;
DDL

Anyone want to go in on a group purchase? I only need 1 or 2, myself...

-- Chuck Knight

Those who wana use this for the PS3 diodes should be aware that most plastic lens flourece a large deal of 405nm light. The light they flourece is no longer coherent.

Swapping from plastic with the PS3 diode made the laser go from a uselessly dim toy into a functionally bright pointing tool.

Very good to know.

Yeah that explains the large spray of non-coherent violet light around the beam on the one I just made using the $4 Aixiz module (I just pulled the 650nm stuff out and used the housings). Not bad, but not so great either.

Any possibility of using the lens from the PS3 deck in a violet collimator? I assume that's plastic though probably a specialty mix. Probably not aspheric and maybe no good as a collimator since in the laser deck, a sharp spot is what's wanted, not a low divergence beam...

I'll have to play with that myself, if no one has tried it

You can get the glass lenses from Aixiz with a lot of emails.....I will see if I can get a shlew (new word) of them, and provide them for purchase or what-not....

SenKat said:

You can get the glass lenses from Aixiz with a lot of emails.....I will see if I can get a shlew (new word) of them, and provide them for purchase or what-not....

Click to expand...

That would be awesome! Great to know about the $2 modules as well.

Could you try to wrestle all the specs for both the glass, and plastic lenses out of them? That way, one could make a more informed decision as to what type of lens to get for different purposes.

For example, a glass lens may have a wider beam diameter, but better collimation, whereas plastic may tend toward a smaller diameter, but possibly give better beam intensity for astronomy pointing use.

Ashton - FWIW, a decent quality plastic lens seems to work well for many people, up to 250mW. One guy even told me he uses acrylic up to several watts using the "right" lens (whatever that means)! But definitely research the issue more instead of taking my word for it. I still need more learning as well.

sound like another group buy

You betcha - got a preliminary reply - "Chuck" has referred me to Xia for processing....I will let everyone know ASAP when I find out !

It would be real nice to get a metal casing with multiple coated glass lenses to collimate the beam. Having to focus the lens on the Aixiz housing is a pain! But, I'm probably dreaming... it would cost too much. I took a look at Meredith Instruments housings, all seem to be single element lenses too.

Rob

Yeah - and VERY expensive !

Why would you need multi-element lenses? As I understand it, aspheric multi-element designs usually exist to compensate for chromatic aberrations. With a single frequency, a simple lens should be just as efficient, if not even more so...fewer elements and interfaces to absorb the power.

-- Chuck Knight