240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 18:13:47 -0500

... classified 8-)

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

markstephen — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 18:03:08 -0500

And the URL to the repo with the CAD drawings and documentation for this bundling head? :)

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 11:23:12 -0500

... no, I then had to design the manufacturing/aligning/adjusting rig for the diodes for this company, but even then I found this type of bundling much too inefective and expensive 8-)

My bundling heads are much smaller and simpler -- and I can combine some hundred fiber-ends in a grapefruit-sized package with a single optical head to receive the same overall energy on a much smaller spot too ;)

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

KalleP — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 09:20:12 -0500

Quote
VDX
... it would work, if you manage to focus all beams in one spot - then you'll add up all the power (:P)

I had to build an justage-stage for ring-focus-lasers ... here they combined 80 diodes with 20 Watts power each to a 'single' 1600 Watt-laser :D

Viktor

Is this the sort of product you were involved with?

[www.ringfocus.de]

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

blackmagicdude — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:59:29 -0400

I brought this blue laser pointer from LAZERER and it cost me less than $100, 500mW also

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:36:39 -0500

... yes, with 445nm you can cut paper with powers below 1Watt, while the 975nm-diodes needs much more power, as whit paper won't absorb the IR-wavelengths.

For shielding you can try with orange coloured PA or Acryl - i have some pieces that are used as UV-blockers, they're shielding nearly all the blue light (see the images with the blue diode): [objects.reprap.org]

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

mts-k — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:50:15 -0500

Hey all,

I have a small project going and used a 2 Watt Diode with a 1 watt driver. Here is the results [www.youtube.com] as you can see, It does indeed engrave plastic. Contrary to this post, this laser does also burn paper. It can do a surface burn at about F 250.00 and it cuts around F 150.00000 so for VDX, my laser is a much shorter nm hence more energy. If anyone is interested in replicating my results, I can suggest this two items + a CPU heat sink if you have one laying around.

It can also etch plywood thought it has difficulty with the tree rings as it moves from dark to light. Nothing a 3 pass system won't fix. Hope this helps you out

Related Links
Didode in Question
[www.ebay.com]
Driver for Diode
[www.ebay.com]

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:04:28 -0400

Hi RedRap,

... you should post this videos in the medical/surgery area and for preventing laser-accidents ...

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

RedRap — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:45:58 -0400

Some videos where you can see the laser-diodes in action:

laser-diodes in action

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

RedRap — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:28:20 -0400

... different cooling options available:

div.jpg

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

RedRap — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:47:55 -0400

Hi Viktor,

see the requested spec's here:
Coherent FAP 81-25c-800 testresults

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:38:36 -0400

Hi RedRap,

i'm interested in the 25W-Diode - can you give me some specs?

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

RedRap — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:17:09 -0400

240mW for $189?

I have some 25Watt, yes, 25000mW :) diodes for sale ... just 250$ plus shipment ...

You can see it in action here:
25W laser diode

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:32:47 -0400

... this are pulsed diodes with duty-cycles of 0.1%, so you have to divide the average power by 1000 ... it means a "pulsed 25Watt-LD" emits only 25mW optical power when averaged 8-)

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

rkm — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:11:24 -0400

Well... if you go to www.farnell.com you'll have laser diodes up to 25w (and 40w if i'm not mistaken at 25 - 60 € ..! wavelenght is about 808nm... how bad can that be??

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

howard — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:10:09 -0400

240 mW laser pointer for $189? now,200 mW 532nm laser pointer only for $53.99? you can have a look for Amazon and Electronic Gadgets.>:D<

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?:S

johnrpm — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:05:36 -0500

Thinking about the bubblejet principle where a bubble is created by electrical heaters, could we have a laser addressing an array of tiny receptacles creating the heat to form the bubble, I have probably not explained this very well. :S

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:41:56 -0500

... it's something more complicated 8-)

White paper is diffuse reflecting most of the radiation.

When the energy is high enough (or long enough present), the paper changes colour to brownish ... then you have much better absorption ... so when going over a specific absorption-rate, it's burned away at once.

It's something of a 'drastic overreaction' at an relatively undefined point when the absorption changes with time.

When applying constant energy, the brown/black area absorbs nearly all present energy and burns much wider than the diameter of the laserspot 8-)

So you have to apply pulses instead of CW or you can't handle it precise enough between "no cut" and "burn a big hole".

On the other hand it should be possible to draw/print a black line on the paper and scan over the paper or better follow the line with the pulsing diode ...

Viktor

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

johnrpm — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:27:27 -0500

Victor
Just thinking out loud here, does that mean that if we had white paper and printed on it a gradient from white to black, and as the beam travels across it would not effect the white area but at some point would mark and then cut as it gets nearer to black?, in effect a mask that modifies absorption, also could some sort of surface coating be used or does the paper or part need to be dark throughout?.

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:00:20 -0500

... a diode-laser with 1 Watt power won't cut white paper!

You have to use dark/absorbing paper or plastic-sheets - for this common cutting systems (or LOM) uses CO2-lasers.

It's the wavelenghth: - diodes are between 800nm and 1070nm, CO2 emits around 10064nm, what's very good interacting with organic materials and metal.

I have a 975nm-1Watt-diodelaser with atached glass-fiber+optical head and a resulting focus of 60 microns (much better than most common optics) and have trouble cutting white plasticsheets or paper 8-)

With my 50Watt-fiberlaser with 1070nm and a spot around 20 microns i can cut white paper with 2Watts power setting, but not really fast 8-)

So for a cutting system you need much more power or you're limited to dark materials only ...

Viktor

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

johnrpm — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:33:40 -0500

Sorry I just realised that this has all been said elsewhere, I should have read more before posting.

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

johnrpm — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:16:47 -0500

What about 3d embossing powders, my wife uses an old toaster to fuse it, I have not done any tests but it does not seem to need much energy for it to fuse, the strength may not be of the highest and it is expensive, laser toner may also be a candidate??, not sure how many we would need to melt solder paste but pcb making?, etching and marking, out of all the cd and dvd writers I have dismantled the diode has always worked and they contain some useful optics, although some are difficult to extract.

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

SebastienBailard — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:06:56 -0500

This was somewhat interesting:
[adsabs.harvard.edu]

Laser cutting of paper is widely used in the paper conversion industry. CO2 lasers are well suited for this type of applications. Desktop printing is a large market both for digital photography, document management and graphics applications, but it still lacks advanced cutting and scoring ability, and CO2 lasers seem costly to be integrated in mass-market printers. For that reason, mass-scalable and low-cost semiconductor laser diodes would be very advantageous to add paper cutting and scoring features in desktop printers. However, common paper can not be cut properly using visible or Near Infrared (NIR) laser diode since it has a very poor absorption at these wavelengths. We report here an innovative solution to achieve paper cutting or scoring using a 1 W single emitter NIR laser diode, within an inkjet printer. A special ink that absorbs the NIR light, and that penetrates all through the paper, is first disposed on the lines to be cut. Then, the laser diode goes along the lines to be cut. We show that a cutting speed of 2m/min can be achieved on 80g/m2 conventional paper. The influence of the optical properties of the ink on the cutting speed are discussed, as well as focussing issues. In particular, we show that invisible inks are suitable, and very clear-cut edges can be obtained. The perspective of this technique are discussed.

So we could do ten 100mW lasers in order to develop 1W of power, but I'm not sure what we'd do with it. Based on the massive interest in the cricut thread, there are people out there who _really_ want to cut paper, though. If we weren't already running plastic extruders, I'd suggest paper LOM (laminated object manufacturing) with laser cut paper and glue.

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

johnrpm — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:20:06 -0500

Dvd writers are now more common in the scrap bin, they seem to be around 100mw power from what I can make out, the write speed seems to be an indicator of this, so far I have collected 4 but will wait for another 2 at least, one thing springs to mind, the spot power could be controlled by switching diodes on and of perhaps,
as in 6 = full power, 3 = 50% power, although I have a feeling it may not be this simple.

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

VDX — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:06:48 -0500

... it would work, if you manage to focus all beams in one spot - then you'll add up all the power (:P)

I had to build an justage-stage for ring-focus-lasers ... here they combined 80 diodes with 20 Watts power each to a 'single' 1600 Watt-laser :D

Viktor

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

johnrpm — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:19:24 -0500

I have been collecting scrap dvd writers for the diodes, I managed to get one to scorch paper using the lens from the dvd writer, would it be possible to combine say 5 or 6 such diodes into one beam and have more power??, or will it not work like that.

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

poo — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:18:01 -0400

yo dude howie get a really laser like a 500 mW thats a real laser burns thru anything even my desk at school got it noob?

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

sid — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:30:34 -0400

Quote

...safety (goggles) first
Quote

THANK YOU!

And no, I won't say anything about the laserdiodes again, I've already did :D

'sid

PS what's that with little boys and fancy coloured lasers anyway?

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

DB — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:31:23 -0400

Just as a quick update. I did a few tests of my 1mW laser focused on to an 0201 thermistor.
I basically saw about a 1 degree centigrade increase in the temperature of the thermistor.
At some point I will get a 5mW laser and hack a 250mW dvd laser diode to repeat tests, but I have to
get some safety goggles first.

Re: 240 mW laser pointer for $189 - what do you think about it?

DB — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:49:46 -0400

Just to see what will happen, I have ordered some 0201 NTC thermistors.
I have some spare lenses and a cheap 1mw laser pointer, so I machined up a
simple optical breadboard to hold everything fixed.

When I get the thermistors, I will set it up as a target as a target and try to get some measurements
of the temperature increase. I should also be able to put some black paint on as well to increase the absorption.

While I do not expect to see a large increase in temperature of the thermistor,hopefully there will be some response..

When I get some real data, I will start a new thread and post the results.