Optical Sensor Attachments
3-D
Designs
Produced by Daniel Senda
Page Information
·
This page was created to
show a few glimpses of the design process for the optical attachments. The
software that is used to create the CAD files is FreeCAD. The 3-D
printer used is the LulzBot Mini 2.
·
One of the projects that a few
of graduate students were working on was designing, laying out, and testing an Avalanche
Photodiode (APD). While in the testing stages of the APD chip, a custom attachment
was required to use with an optical sensor (Thor labs integrating sphere).
Daniel took charge of designing the custom optical sensor attachment.
Dimension Information
The following diagram was found in
the technical documents of the integrating sphere. A few additional measurements
were calculated and measured using a caliper.
Sketches
The following is the initial sketch of the attachment. The
bottom portion of the attachment was designed to snap into place on the optical
sensor. Also, as can be noted, the top of the of the attachment has an opening
for a copper tube to fit into place. The idea of this custom attachment is to
have no outside light enter the set-up.
The initial sketch was finalized by adding appropriate dimensions
for the attachment.
FreeCAD Design
The following are the different three versions of the attachment.
The outer exterior remains the same, but the tube opening changes. The different
apertures were used to get a wider variety of data to help in testing the APD
chip.
Finalized
3-D Printed Attachments
The first couple prints were not perfect, and refinements were
made to create the final versions. Again, the outer exterior remains the same,
but the inside aperture is different. In addition, the attachment was first
printed in white, but then changed to black to diminish any source of outside
light from entering the final set-up.
Optical
Sensor Attachment in Use
The following pictures show the final set-up that the
graduate students envisioned. The requirement of having no external light from
entering was a success. More information about the APD chip, layout, and testing
can be found on the following graduate student thesis.
Additional Links