Something not many people would run into!

[Things]

I took my laser scanner to a big concert the other day. I arrived and unpacked it from the box. SInce it had been on the plane, train and bus, I decided to give it a little test run. I powered it up and all was fine, except the laser. It was working, but it was VERY dim. I touched it and it was VERY cold. I knew instantly that it was being affected by the cold temperatrues. The laser is only rated for 40mw output, so I needed all the power I could get. So I disabled the fan, and let it run, blanked, for a few hours before the concert. I was hoping the galvo PSU/amps would warm it up a little. Lukily it worked perfectly on the night. It was a little dim, but its only 40mw, so its expected.

Has anyone else run into the problem of the laser being too cold?? his one was just mounted to the metal case, so no TEC or anything. But it is winter here

Here's a pic of it in action!

Hopefully I will have a higher powered laser for it next year, but all was fine I guess!

[stanwax]

It is a common problem mainly due to the fact that most chineese (all I have seen) only have single ended tec control that only allows cooling the internal parts. What is really needed is a controller that can change the polarity of its output which will drive the tec in reverse acting like a heater. Not only would this help to alleviate your problem (it would not get rid of it) it would make the lasers much more stable under normal operation as with the correct controlling electronics you would be able to achieve much more accurate temp. control of the temp sensitive parts.

Rob

[Things]

Yeah, well the laser module is only a cheap thing. Actually I dont think it even has a TEC. It's only 40mw so its not really needed. Its just the whole laser case was at about 12C. So I turned it on before hand, using DMX with the laser blanked, to let the PSU and galvo amps warm up the casing abit. Dave from LSP apparently has a 150mw, which I am thinking would have temp. stability. By the "Something not many people would run into", I mean usually most people are having probs drawing heat away from thier setup. Not having to disable the fan and let it run like 3 hours before the show

[thesk8nmidget]

interesting this same thing happened to me before a new years show in 05'/06' in oregon

took about 35 minutes til the laser warmed up and got brighter but that was with the fan on.

i was a ltitle stressed cause earlier in the day when i did a few tests it worked fine but it got really cold that evening and made it a little harder to warm up