Laser Projector (Red, Green, Purple) "Laser 3D Party Light" from Spencer's

[LaserCo]

check out these two I found:

Package include:
Projector * 1
AC power supply * 1
Manual * 1
Tripod * 1
CD * 1(with picture edition software)
SD card * 1
$144.84
http://www.mcwto.com/mini-laser-stag...th-tripod.html
(the customer review states that it has only red and green, no blue)
I see blue


or this one $84
(No mention of any software or SD card., the pictures show an inferior display)
http://www.mcwto.com/mini-laser-stage-light-3547.html



I am sort of hesitant on submitting this post to this thread.
I would be more tempted to buying that more expensive one if it had 3 actual colors

[DogP]

Yeah, I'd rather pick up the Red/Green/Violet Spencer's one for $170, that you can inspect in person, rather than dealing with some unknown Chinese thing that shows stock screenshots from some other device (since it's only red/green).

DogP

[DogP]

BTW, as I had mentioned a while ago... the hole for the fan is way too small, rendering it almost useless. I decided to take my step drill bit and enlarge the hole. 1.5" would probably be ideal, but the largest my bit went to was 1.375", so I figured that's better than nothing. And it does make a huge difference in the amount of air flow, though I've never noticed any of the lasers get hot. They're mounted to large heatsinks, and are running at <5mW, so they'd probably be fine even with no fan. But anyway, here are a couple pics of the mod:







DogP

[steve-o]

These really need an ar aperture window. the fan sucks any dust and debris in the room right through over the galvo mirrors. They wont stay clean long..
Nice job in drilling the fan hole out

[DogP]

These really need an ar aperture window. the fan sucks any dust and debris in the room right through over the galvo mirrors. They wont stay clean long..
Nice job in drilling the fan hole out

I agree... I put it up for a party I had this weekend, and I put a piece of clear packing tape over the opening in the front, not worrying about dust, but fearing that someone would see the shiny lights and stick their fingers inside, and damage the mirrors. It actually didn't degrade the quality or brightness much, but I was thinking about installing a permanent window.

I don't think you have to worry too much about dust with the factory fan hole... there is hardly any air movement, and the holes in the side of the case provide more than enough air for it. With my improved hole, it still barely sucks a piece of paper to the front opening... it won't hold the weight of the paper.

DogP

[LEDpaint]

Kitbash it to this for 185mw; http://www.chauvetlighting.com/minlaser-rbx. This is $130.

[DogP]

Kitbash it to this for 185mw; http://www.chauvetlighting.com/minlaser-rbx. This is $130.

Heh, I was actually wondering how stupid it'd look if I put one of those diffraction lenses in front. I imagine it'd just look like a bunch of stars moving around a little bit... probably not a very cool effect.

On another note... somehow my 405nm diode has gone weak on me, so I'm using this as an excuse to upgrade to 445nm. I should have it in a few days, so I'll post a few pics of the process to replace the laser diode in one of these.

DogP

[steve-o]

Just pull out the 405 diode and stick in a 445 diode ..? .. hmmm .. let's see how well that goes.. not trying to be a smartass, just wondering what the voltage and current specs are on the 405. I think a 445 diode draws about an amp iirc and I had to use anamorphic prism pair after the coll lens to get it decent .. I don't know much about the 405's tho .. never worked with 'em .. Is the pinout the same? Isolated or gnd pin the same?

[DogP]

Just pull out the 405 diode and stick in a 445 diode ..? .. hmmm .. let's see how well that goes.. not trying to be a smartass, just wondering what the voltage and current specs are on the 405. I think a 445 diode draws about an amp iirc and I had to use anamorphic prism pair after the coll lens to get it decent .. I don't know much about the 405's tho .. never worked with 'em .. Is the pinout the same? Isolated or gnd pin the same?

I did some research on it, and it seems possible that it'll work, but I don't know 100%.... I figured it's worth a shot. It's the same package and the wires are soldered directly to the pins, so the pinout doesn't matter. I know the driver can provide the proper voltage, though the circuit may need to be tweaked for the current (or I'll just run my own driver). The specs that I saw between the 405nm and 445nm seemed on the same order of magnitude (something like 600mA outputs 800mW on 405nm, and about 600mW on 445nm), and the lenses and dichros that people sell seem to be good for 405nm-450nm, so I figured it has a chance of just working. But of course this is <5mW, so perfect optics aren't a necessity, and the current draw probably won't be much above the lasing threshold. Though I did just do some searching, and it looks like the lasing threshold on the 405nm is quite a bit lower than the 445nm, so I'll probably have some tweaking to do.

DogP

[DogP]

So, I took a look at the drive circuit... it's got a CN5611 driver, which is supposedly good up to 800mA. With the current configuration, it has an 8.2K resistor in series with a 50K pot, which is used in the equation Iout=910V/Riset. This is consistent with what I've seen... with the pot set to 0 ohms, I put a 33 ohm load across the output and measured the current @ ~110mA. So, to run the 445nm, I'll probably have to bump this up to ~250mA MAX (~3.3K), and do the final output tweak with the pot. Just to be complete, the green laser uses a 3.3K, and the red laser uses a 9.1K.

I'm guessing this hardware is meant to drive the lasers harder, except they tune it down to keep it Class IIIa (whether it actually even is, I dunno... I don't have a laser power meter). With the thick brass housings mounted to the aluminum heatsinks and the exhaust fan, these lasers don't even get warm. They're generating maybe a couple hundred mW of heat each.

DogP