Improving Red (Maybe ALL) Beams

[planters]

it would be great if there would be a way to somehow gear an adjustment or something that extremely fine adjustments can be done with bigger turns compared to doing it through a screw :/

That is one reason the newest projector I constructed (not reviewed yet) is a bit easier to fine-align. I have replaced some of the flex-mounts and some of my DIY mounts with some nice, fine pitch Thorlabs mounts for the turning mirrors. It only requires one real good adjustable mount in the train. Once the coarser components have settled down the last adjustment can be made very precisely.

Also not sure if another thread is already hopping onto this but I heard that the new oclaro is worse then the P73

Where did you hear this? The only report I have heard so far is based on the beams that DTR posted and these show the Oclaro is cleaner than the P73, has similar divergence to the G71 and has power that is similar to the P73. If it is indeed worse then that is the end of that story for me. I am not going to waste time manipulating the beam of each new diode that comes out unless there is reason to believe the final result will be superior.

[badger1666]

Eric he would have seen those results in my thread which you commented on, where I could not get the oclaro ,with Dave's lens and a 3x cylinder lens set under 1.4mrad compared to 1mrad from p73 in the same setup

[logsquared]

My limited testing with the new oclaro shows the die (emission area at ~.5A) is approximately 15% wider than the 71. The beam looks better, however I haven't put it through cylinders yet.

[planters]

Badger,

What current were you driving those diodes at? I don't have Dave's cylinders and the magnification is very dependent on the distance from the diode to the first cylinder of the pair, but whatever the magnification, the bottom line is the near field dimensions, X and Y and the far field dimensions at a given distance. Can you give these. I think I screwed up on my DTR order (PayPal funding from a dead account) and although reordered, I don't have the Oclaro's yet.

logsquared,

When you do, can you give these dimensions as well. I don't like using the divergence number until it is used as a convenient summing up because it is SO dependent on the two numbers that it is derived from. For example, a 5mm exit beam that at 10 M is 10 mm wide gives a 1/2mrad divergence, but a slightly higher magnification to 6mm at the exit will reduce the spread by 20% to close to 8mm and give a divergence near 0.2mrad (this is an approximation, but it is close).

[badger1666]

I was only driving them at around 350ma , i was using the lava cylinder lens set with first lens at 45mm from diode
To get a 5mm beam and then just swapped diodes.
The oclaro gave 10mm at 3.5m compared to the p73's 8mm
I also just tried the olclaro at 22m and got far field size of 35mm which gives 1.36 mrad
The p73 gave me 28mm which is 1.04mrad
Got to say at 22m the oclaro is like single mode compared to the p73 , 80% less junk around the beam

[planters]

Interesting. The Oclaro's just arrived and so I am going to start on the first stage of the video and document the P73 before I swap out. And to think I just improved my spatial filter design. We'll see.

[andy_con]

just think, if you set the diode and lens up correctly you wont need a spatial filter

[LaNeK779]

just think, if you set the diode and lens up correctly you wont need a spatial filter

ha ha!! that should keep Sir Eric motivated

[planters]

Maybe not. But, I like these so much I now use them on the 445's as well. To dump these filters, these diodes will have to be REALLY clean, but I hope they are. The added benefit of clean is that more of the power that DTR demonstrated will be in the core.

Badgers results have me a little worried however.

[badger1666]

Eric if your two pcx lens trick gets these oclaro's down to 1mrad i for one will build a quad for my beam show projector