How can I fix (do it yourself) this IPG fiber laser?

[krazer]

Usually the fibers would be 'fusion spliced' into a fiber combiner. For simple jobs where you just want to get a beam out of the fiber you can just cleave the fiber tip and then mount the fiber in some sort of collimator. For use in a laser marker it would probably be best to terminate the fiber in a connector of some sort (SMA would be the cheapest) so that the fiber can be mounted in a standard collimator.

For simple testing you can strip the fibers with a razor blade and cleave the glass fiber with a carbide (or similar) scribe. The quality of the beam won't be great but it will at least prevent the fiber from melting. Anything more advanced than that gets expensive quickly, for example a precision fiber cleaver costs about $500 and a fusion splicer costs $5k and up. Even just the tools for doing manual fiber termination will run a few hundred dollars and for production type tooling (which you will probably want if you are going to try and terminate hundreds of diodes) easily get into the tens of thousands.

[VDX]

... my "cleaved" fibers did't survive more than 20 Watts for longer than 5 minutes ... any dust particle or micro-fissure will start to melt the fiber tip!

So I'm cutting+breaking (cleaving) them to length, insert and glue into a FSMA connector and polish the tip with down to RA 20 nm ...

Viktor

[krazer]

As long as you are careful to get a decent quality cleave and keep the end clean (wipe the fiber down with IPA after stripping, but before cleaving, then never allow it to touch anything that might contaminate it) you should be able to get stable operation for a diode like this. Even on the 50w ones I have used this approach without trouble, but of course it is not the most convenient way to operate the system. The real fun starts when you are trying to couple power _in_ to a fiber, then it becomes important to worry about the thermal management. For a 105um fiber a freestanding and properly cleaved end should be good for about 100-200w before it starts to show signs of trouble. Highest power density I have ever tried with a freestanding cleaved fiber was a 40um core fiber with a 100w average power which worked fine.

[Janaksangani]

My apologies for posting this question within the wrong category on photonlexicon--it has been more than a year since I read the categories.

The YLP brochure says that the fiber length changes with pulse power. My interpretation is that this means the factory cuts the fiber to the length best suited for a particular output pulse energy.

The brochure goes on to say that the fiber is terminated with a collimator. My interpretation here is that the output coupler is upstream, prior to this fiber connection.



For the YLP product brochure says,
Standard YLP Series Ytterbium laser modules provide a
pulsed output beam with average output power from 5 to
100 Watts and pulse width from 80 to 500ns. Laser output is
provided by a 1 to 8 meter (depends on energy per pulse)
metal-sheathed optical fiber cable terminated by beam col-
limator providing a near diffraction limited (M2<2) beam
with diameter from 2 to 15mm.

Can I customise frequency watt ratio?

[Janaksangani]

Post some pictures of the inside of the laser, in particular the piece of optical fiber before the spot where it has been cut and we can survey the damage

Hi Krazer

Can I increase watt against 10 Khz frequency???

[dar303]

Attachment 51915
Attachment 51916
Attachment 51917

Sorry to wake this thread from the dead but if anyone has contact info for George that had these diodes I would love to get it, he said he might sell some!

[gmnic]

I was fortunate enough to sell all my IPG diodes, having retained only a few for my own experiments.
Now I just need to find time to work with them !!

VDX - constantly AMAZED at what you do and your salvage "finds" !

George

[VDX]

Hi George,

if you'r referring to my thread "some gears ..." -- yes, sometimes I'm puzzled too, what people start to throw at me, if they knew my interests

Viktor

[javanam]

Hello.
I have a similar laser ipg pyl-50m it has a db25 connector and 48laser diodes inside the 5w version.
Where can i found the pinount of db25 connector? How to drive this laser without knowing the db25 connector pinout ?
Inside the laser diodes are connected 2 x 24 in series so i suppose they want a power supply of 2 outputs constant current 24xVf max 5A right ?

This laser is suitable for a galvo scan head to engraving metals ?
Is there software cam+controller for engraving galvo scan head ?
I have an old rofin galvo scan head with f-theta 1064nm lens but i don't know how to drive it.

[VDX]

... can you post a photo of the output head?

If it's a small cylinder with around 12mm diameter, then it's most likely a CW-laser -- most likely a 50 to 70 Watt type.

For galvo-marking shiny/reflective metal you'll need a "pulsed" type, whats a much bigger head with a Faraday-isolator inbetween (a cubus in the middle of the 34mm cylinder head).

You can mark/engrave metal with this type too, but any reflection will blast the internal optics ... her I'm "scewing" the beam by 10 to 20 degrees, so it's a chance, it won't reflect back into the optics ...

Viktor