DrLava's Red Lava 642 Modules

[mikkojay]

I was able to fire up one of these for the first time yesterday, and I was very happy
These modules have a smart & compact design, and the output has me sold on 642nm. I put one in a scanner with a LW 100+mw 532, and the Red Lava actually held its own- Granted I had to throttle back the green slightly, but I can actually get a decent yellow with good power! I'll take some pics as soon as I can bust out my hazer in the mini scanner thread.
Also, as always, Andrew is very easy to deal with and answers all your questions in intricate detail, even if you keep asking and asking and...
Thanks, Mike

[Pitopito]

I finally found the time to hijack this thread with some pics of the 2 beautys that I also bought from DrLava. (Glass lens option)

Because here on PL pics are so important, I have prepared a super detailed gallery :


Big and solid package


undestructible bubble wrapping


Very detailed user manual to set up the flexmod boards


The two units in separate anti static bags and labeled as V and H (polarization)


The DVD is there only to compare the dimentions of the units


A close up of one module


Testing the output


At 5.2V both modules are emitting precisely 150mW (30 mW above specs).
Very very good, probably the glass lenses are contributing to the excellent results


The spot at close distance is really small and round, so no trouble pointing to any galvo mirror.


An old friend back on stage for comparison test


Do you remember it?


The MAXYZ does not mantain the promises


The spots at about 10 feets distance at full power (camera exposure at min.)
On the left the RedLava. To the naked eye, is much less orange than in the pic and the core of the spot is smaller and round, but surrounded by a small cookie shaped vertical aura.
On the right, the very large aura of the MAXYZ, plus a very annoying horizontal stripe. The core of the spot is really small, but the extra aura is not so nice. Even on camera, the stronger brightness of the RedLava is evident.


Same spots, with a dimmed flash.
As stated before, at naked eye the color of the beams are much more similar (not yellow or orange at all), but the brightness of the DrLava outperform the MAXYZ

Conclusions:
I have to mention the excellent communication with Andrew.
There was a delay in the shipping, due to my request of the glass lenses. (They took a while to arrive to Andrew's address). In the meantime he didn't cashed my check, a nice sign of honest and correct behaviour, in particular after reading here some of the weird stories about deals gone wrong.
(Not to mention my months of struggles to get my MAXYZ shipped)
So, after all, I'm very happy with my purchase and totally in love with 642nm diodes.
Last, but not least, each unit got a LASORB inside...!!!!

Two thumbs up (v and h crossed and seen thru a pbs cube )

[ImageLight]

Hey All,

These Red Lava 642's are really nice, I picked one up at SELEM 09 from Andrew and
just got around to integrating the module into my RGB beam scanner. It produces a
nice white balance when matched to a ILT 5500A argon doing 350mW through a PCAOM. I have also isolated the entire module from the base plate using a nylon bolt
washer to eliminate any grounding issues. The red beam overlays on the argon beam
almost perfectly.

[drlava]

Awesome, thanks guys. ImageLight, the bracket of this module is already insulated from the driver and the diode, so those precautions aren't necessary but if it makes you happy and doesn't affect the mounting stability then go for it