Fiber Coupler Feeler

[krazer]

To all of you that are looking into adding a fiber coupled remote head to your projector-

What would you be willing to pay for a fiber coupler system? I have a few nice fiber coupler setups, but they need to be refurbished (burned lenses, missing lenses, missing connectors, they weren't well cared for in their previous life), and plenty of fiber to get you guys going. I am trying to decide if it is worth buying the pieces needed to make them into a full set.

In case you are interested, I have 4 output couplers (3 need lenses), and 5 input couplers (1 with a perfect lens, 1 with a burned lens), and a few hundred feet of 200um (good for a few watts!) fiber.

I would be looking at selling a 'needs work' setup for $50-$100, or a refurbished 'like new' setup for $300-$500 depending on what the bits end up costing. As far as I can tell the system are still being sold, so it should be possible to get the parts. But due to the relatively high cost, I can't go out and start buying lenses if no one wants to buy them! Looking around it looks like a good quality fiber coupler system would cost $1000-$2000 depending on who makes it for a new one, so it seems like it would be a worthwhile project...

Any thoughts?

[mccarrot]

I need one for a 4W Argon, how much is shipping to the Netherlands.

[Laser Ben]

I have some very nice Kine-Flex ones with mounts if you are interested for $350. I will ship for free to the Netherlands.

[krazer]

Ben please keep to selling your warez in your own threads

It looks like there is some interest, so I am investigating what exactly I need. I will try to have exact prices by the end of the week.

[flecom]

i might be interested in 2 sets depending on cost... could they take a few watts?

[krazer]

They should be fine for a few watts, the fiber is 200um fused silica fiber, belden 220001. I can't find it anywhere on Belden's site, but comparing the data from a few papers referencing it I dug up at school, it should be pretty similar to this fiber from Thorlabs, http://www.thorlabs.com/thorProduct....mber=BFL22-200, which stages a damage threshold of 1.3kW/mm^2, so multiplying by the 0.031mm^2 area of a 200um fiber you get about 40 watts (!!) before the fiber would be damaged. I wouldn't recommend running it that hard, but as long as you are careful to never hit the cladding with your source you shouldn't have any problems. Just keep in mind that when you are dealing with powers like that, you ALWAYS need to align with the power low (~50mw), and once you have it all aligned then go ahead and hit it with the big power.

For those of you who are interested, the input couplers are a CFS-CIC from Precision Projection Systems, and I have one CFS-COC output coupler, and a 3 that are made by a different company (no connector, the fiber mounts strait into the coupler), but are comparable to the CFS-SOC coupler (the output lens is 10mm diameter cemented doublet, 20mm focal length, which should give a beam about 8mm diameter, with somewhere between 2-4mrad of divergence). After I get them cleaned up I will take some more concrete measurements on the beam diameter and divergence, but that should at least give you an idea of what you are working with.

Cheers

[satje]

What will be the estimated loss when using this?
I am also interested, no more lifting that big argon

Ferry

[krazer]

Ok guys-
I have parted out all of the pieces I need, and am going to aim to sell the systems at $400 each.

I have 1 system which is completely PPS, which includes:
1x CFS-CIC input coupler, with the achromat lens (suitable for white-light applications)
1x CFS-COC output coupler, also with the achromat lens
1x connectorized piece of fiber (with the PPS proprietary connectors on both ends), length TBD will be >10meters
This system has used lenses, but it was removed in good condition and the optics were cleaned and found to be free of burns, scratches, etc. The fiber is going to be re-terminated as soon as I get new connectors (probably next week).

I have 3 systems which have a PPS input coupler, and a Lasermedia output coupler. The lasermedia coupler is a 'semi custom' part that is not sold, but is used in Lasermedia's projectors. It is not connectorized, the fiber mounts somewhat permanently to the output coupler (held in with set screws). Of course you can still disconnect the fiber from the input coupler, so your remote head isn't permanently tethered to your main projector. These all had trashed/missing lenses, so all of the optics have been replaced (as noted below)
In any case you get-
1x CFS-CIC input coupler, with a brand new achromat lens from PPS
1x laser-media output coupler, with a brand new Melles Griot LAL-20.0-10.0 achromat, AR coated for 400-700nm.
1x piece of fiber <10m length, with a connector for the PPS coupler on one end, and the laser media output coupler on the other end.

I will try to take pictures of the parts I have now this evening, and will take more concrete measurements on the performance when the new optics come in (should be next week).

[krazer]

Update- sorry for the delay, pictures as promised

overall view of a pps input coupler and lm output coupler (note- this is using a piece of pps fiber, which will ultimately be mated with the pps output coupler, just waiting on parts)


Shot of the pps input coupler being used in reverse to show with 200um fiber you can even fit mondo beams


the belkin fiber that will be mated with the lm output coupler (2 pieces are ~100ft one is ~50ft)


the laser media output coupler


the beam from a lm output coupler looking from 20ft


the beam at 20ft from the laser media coupler


the pps output coupler


the beam at 20ft from the pps output coupler


The whole system gets 70-80% coupling efficiency, a sizable chunk of the loss appears to be coming from the pps input coupler lens (just going through the lens, no fiber gives ~15% loss!) which I need to investigate but I think its due to a poor AR coating. The CVI lens I put in the laser media couplers only has ~5% loss. The lm coupler has a 0.35" beam diameter, and is 2.3" diameter at 20ft (15mrad divergence), and the pps coupler has a .32" beam diameter and is 3.1" at 20ft, 22mrad. But note that all of the lines from my white light argon are perfectly focused onto the same spot (the speckle makes it looks kind of funky with short exposures, but in normal operation its a nice consistent white).

If you have any more questions let me know, I am still waiting for the parts from pps to come in but I should be able to start shipping these by the end of june (ick!)

[flecom]

thats nice!

would make my laserscope a lot more useful if I could move the light away from it via fiber