We have been shipping these lasers for over 20 years and they remain the industry standard for flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, and DNA sequencing. The heat sink you showcased was a key innovation, at the time, as passive cooling was not widely used. This was possible because the Sapphire laser uses 10x less power due to it’s efficiency. Coherent has shipped 60,000 Sapphires, which is all the more remarkable when you look inside one and see for yourself the precision manufacturing that is required. Great video.

@Zenodilodon

8 ай бұрын

Coherent is nearly impossible to beat. They have a long history in the laser industry with many innovations, OPSL being one of them! I got to messing around with the older HP 200mW head that I showed in the end of the video and found it had a shorted reverse protection diode by the pump. I wired a bunch of my driver stuff up to that unit and can get 400mW of 488nm! This will be on a video of it's own one day. Any other laser stuff you work with yourself? How did you get into working with the Sapphires?

I appreciate your explanation of this new to me type of laser configuration. I also enjoy that your camera CCD has a little bit of what looks to me like laser burn damage (the purple pinkish squiggle). It adds a level of home-y comfort and relatability.

Coolers, heaters, gradient index optics, wow, this baby has everything! As usual, you did a great job getting it working and explaining everything. Beautiful beam!

Explained very nicely

Super nice video my friend!!

Nice job mate!

Conquering any Coherent laser module is a task in it self great video like always gotta love the coherent modules always look so amazing

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

I had a whole lot of fun figuring everything out. There is yet to be a Coherent product I haven't appreciated, even their direct diode units are clean.

@martijn4740

Жыл бұрын

@@Zenodilodon yea they are all small works of Art

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

@@martijn4740 Have you seen the Coherent Obis Core LS series? Man, they are a siren call for a lonely sailor.

@martijn4740

Жыл бұрын

@@Zenodilodon no not yet but going to google them right now 😄

Audio was great! Visually excellent! Why do the two lasers at the end look so different on camera? LOVE those PTC heater drivers!

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, it will be interesting to see what all the differences in the beams are. This was a fun video, we have to get around to working on the rest. Big thanks for one of these to work on and the feedback while developing the PTC drivers. I had such a fun time.

Very nice! I have seen a few of these cropping up on eBay lately, and it is real nice to see inside one! I wonder if an open cavity OPSL like this would tolerate Q-Switching...

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

Hmm that's an interesting question. I am not sure if the OPS chip acts as a gain medium the same way a doped crystal would. That would be the only limitation I could think of, besides that there is nothing preventing it otherwise.

Wow, I've never seen such blatent use of millmans theorem in one video!

Who else flinched at 3:57 :D

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

Testing the camera sensor with the dummy load of course.

Hi again, unrelated to this video but I wonder if you have any ideas for some experiments I want to try. I am looking to attempt to investigate the existence of anti-stokes upconversion fluorescence in some strange and highly luminescent minerals such as Hackmanite and Chlorophane. I don't know if I will use your green pointer mod or just buy an 808nm pointer at this point but I need some way of not blinding myself with the laser while simultaneously still being able to see the upconverted feeble glow of the mineral if it exists at all. This is a problem since all I see out there are tinted laser goggles which in many cases will probably simply absorb all the visible light I want to see. Dichroics are going to be expensive and angle dependent and so dangerous, so I'm not sure how it can be done safely. do you have any ideas?

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

That is a tricky question. Dichroic glass filters for UV/IR tend to to a decent job at killing 808nm pass through. The catch is, just like with all dichroics the effective angle is only from direct head on angle. This means that laser light entering from the sides/peripheral vision angles can be a hazard. This also limits how far you can turn away from looking at the laser directly while it's running and still have blocking work effectively. Do to this I would suggest locking the IR blocking optic in the device and not in use as goggles if you use a dichroic glass filter. IE use it as your sample chambers viewing window. I would also suggest use of a prism afterwards so you can both view the source and use a physical light stop in the area where IR would leak through. With this configuration you should be able to blast your samples with a stupid amount of IR without risk to your eyes.

@Muonium1

Жыл бұрын

@@Zenodilodon Cool thx. I think I see what you're saying except for the prism part. Where would the prism go?

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

@@Muonium1 Anywhere after the sample, best after the filter. It's just another way to split off the IR completely and leave the visible. Say you are looking at the sample through a prism, the light is refracted and the IR will land on one of the far ends of the output. You can use a physical block on the output of the prism in the IR section to kill every bit of remaining IR while still having 100% of your visible output available. You'll probably need to make a rather specific test chamber, one that can be viewed from a specif angle but on the upside it would be a chamber that could be configured for any such test. If you drop me an email I can send ya a sketch of what's in my head.

@marianl8718

Жыл бұрын

@@Zenodilodon In the case of prisms, the same angle problem occur as in the case of dichroic filters. A simple and inexpensive solution must be found, which is difficult, because it is difficult to stop long wafelenghts (the Sun shines very faintly at sunrise or sunset, yet in the infrared it can be almost as bright as at noon !). It remains to be seen where the anti-Stockes luminiscence would be seen and whether a regular blue filter for the video camera sensor would be good. Likewise, a 2 cm thick liquid filter a 2.5% CuCl2 solution stop the infrared, but also attenuates something from the lowers part of the spectrum. The old anti-caloric filters do not completely stop the infrared, but since they are practically colorless, they can be used in all places. I think it's good that someone brought up such a problem. Solving such a issues can sometimes be even more useful than the purpose they serve !

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

Saw the last comment, figured I would draw a rough diagram of my thoughts on the test chamber setup. Let me know if you guys want to look at it, I'll email it over.

Would you mind sharing pinout of connector?

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

Not one bit. 23:20

What do you mean by digital components? Also, where the heck did you get such an old carbon resistor from 😂 For the current spike, couldn't you fix it with a diode? You got two 555s,yoj could use a 556 which is a dual package Your bulbs, they aren't happy! So much sputtered off, that's why you can't make filaments flash so much 🙈 still, at least the glass is shiny 😅 For your micro maniuplationsxmaybe you can make a kind of reversing pantograph, translating larger actions into small ones? (you mentioned a pinout you'd explain later, butt never did) okay I think that's my longest comment for the year made, 😅

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

There is nothing that uses a 1 or or 0 to signify any portion of data hence, digital possible current spikes would be caused by a compensation delay. When the optoisolator is disconnected the the output of the LM358 swings all the way trying to bring up the current to it's at full output technically when the base of the transistor is connected which could turn the transistor on to 100% The suggestion of moving the optoisolator solves this issues 100%, hence the mention of that. Show a board that uses 2 555s though... The light bulbs came from old car door lights my friend pulled out, I think they are from the 80s. He was replacing them with LED lights and I was like... mate how are you going to throw lightbulbs away in my presence... 23:16 is where I went more on the pin out. All the pins are numbers for what they connect to and even I labeled the ones I did no use. It's in text during part of the diagram picture.

@phonotical

Жыл бұрын

@@Zenodilodon nothing digital, except for the user 😁 Your diagrams were flashes on the screen, perhaps I missed one? They still make and sell those bulbs! Some people go crazy even looking for the right ones, but you're right, it's a shame to toss out perfectly good tungsten and vacuum like that!

Zen! What a great surprise! I was just about to email you and here you are, in my living room. Great to see another of your amazing YT videos This is an awesome accomplishment. I remember you developing the TEC thermal control circuit, only a few months ago. Thank you for sharing and providing the links for dummies, so that we're able to RTFM, in order to understand what you've crammed into this video. The text overlays and circuit board graphics were very helpful Any plans for Gerbers and/or a PCB? Perhaps a DIY kit?

@Zenodilodon

Жыл бұрын

Took enough time but yes! Another Zen production landed. Thanks for the feedback, I am continuing to polish up video with content that covers more in clearer detail, esp with these types of topics. I do have plans to develop kits, this is a long term project but I want to bring into form a nice user friendly ecosystem of laser driving hardware. My plan is t keep it simple, make sure that it works correctly, and of course make it fun to use and tinker with. That is kind of reflected in breaking the laser driver back up and making modular components, So many things to make and to and fix... Some body call the Power Rangers stat, I need assistance lol.