Just tinkering with something 638nm RED 8W and bright as hell.

[absolom7691]

The 4mm beam will stay pretty much the same, the 1mm needs the correction, so no matter what happens, the beam will stay at
4mm x I duno yet, maybe 4x3, 4x4. and a target of <1.5mrad.

That would be the holy grail, right there. Good luck to you! I am afraid to ask how many mortgages needed to buy one of these beauties. No doubt this diode is in beta testing.... Looking forward to seeing more!

[steve-o]

I am afraid to ask how many mortgages needed to buy one of these beauties.

Yeh, I wasn't even going to ask .....

[andyf97]

The price of these samples was indeed a mortgage due to them being almost 100% custom one offs; but in the end they will cost less than any other 8W option and impossible to go out of alignment like multi diode stacks do.

And; there is no PBS involved, just some very specially crafted lenses that do all the work usually done by knife edge mirrors.

Not only that, you can easily PBS two of these together and still maintain a very tiny module size to have at least 16W of 638nm while keeping within the working parameters of the diodes.

I sniff this setup will need a patent.

[steve-o]

Not only that, you can easily PBS two of these together and still maintain a very tiny module size to have at least 16W of 638nm while keeping within the working parameters of the diodes.

Unbelievable !!

I sniff this setup will need a patent.

I would definitely think so. Also a patent attorney might be a good idea too. I believe that a global patent these days is a difficult and expensive task to accomplish unless you're a large corporation. Not impossible though for a single inventor.
Congratulations Andy !! Nicely done !!!
Can't wait to see the final product !
PS- The analog modulated driver for this thing is going to be a beast !!!

[andyf97]

PS- The analog modulated driver for this thing is going to be a beast !!!

I am using 40amp Taipan drivers for testing since I have a load of spares doing nothing.

[absolom7691]

...in the end they will cost less than any other 8W option...

Hopefully a 1W, 2W and 4W option for the hobbyist? Sure, you could attenuate 8W but the cost of an 8W diode assem. to attenuate to 4W or even 2W, to match the rest of the projector would not be justifiable. I know the next question would be "Why would you attenuate 8W? " 8W or even 4W would be a touch much for what I and others do. Then again, you could split the beam and fiber launch it to multiple projectors and either use the same modulation or use an AOM for the red in each projector.

Damn, this is an awesome thread, Andy. Well done, indeed! Waiting for some FF pics and beam shots.

[planters]

Andy,

What is your involvement? Did the company that fabricated these obtain the Mitsu diodes and then custom mount them with the lenses? Or, is this a custom product directly from Mitsu? You said the divergence is 2mrad at 1mm x 4mm. Is that 2mrad in both axis despite the asymmetric beam or is this the divergence in one of the two axises? Can you show some images of the far field pattern? The high current and 2V drop implies these have as many as 16 of the typical 500mW diodes on the bar.

What do you need to do with this? I mean re tinkering with the lenses. What kind of testing are you planning to do? I would be interested in looking at these and evaluating the effect of cooling on power and wavelength. This might be more complicated than the single Mitsu's because of the FAC and other epoxied optics. Are they for sale? Will the company fabricate these on demand?

[logsquared]

What he said^^^^^

[andythemechanic]

This array is 20x the ML501p73 in a row. You can buy it here: http://dilas.de/pages/products.php?category=1&series=1
Regarding Beam quality it is also 20x the ML501p73, no surprises here.

Andreas

[White-Light]

Nice find for projectors but with something that small, why is it I fear 8W laser pointers are on the horizon?

(Not saying Andy will do that but I'm sure certain laser pointer companies might).