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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

SSY 1's Recently?






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John -- I was great talking to you tonight.
For those interested, that "simple" spectro shows a Nikon
camera looking down a piece of PVC pipe. What you can't
see is a razor blade slit and a CD used as a grating in the path.
I don't know if we can increase the power on this "SSY-2"
to the level he needs for material ablation.
Our power meter idea looks like a winner and we may start
offering parts as soon as the materials are available to us.
I often wanted a high power meter for pulse measurements
because I got tired of burning my Scientech sensors!!!
HMike
Carbon rods ordered dude !!
 
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All this SSY talk made me get mine working. Its been sitting in a drawer for about 2 years and I've only fired it twice since then.

Got it out and shot it at a paper card a few times. Makes a lovely snapping sound. Its got such a punch I can feel the card move every time it hits.

imgur: the simple image sharer
 
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Jeff --- I hope you have goggles for 1064 nM.
This can peak ~ 1 MW. Be careful

How many Joules are you hitting it with? --
mFd, Volts, Inductor??
HMike
 
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I appreciate the safety concerns Mike. I do infact have Certified glasses for the 1064nm wavelength. imgur: the simple image sharer

Running mine at about 550V 60uF. I have the original PFN and Trigger circuit but its a bit too bulky and I couldn't get much info on how to trigger it so I decided to use my own setup. I'm not using an inductor.

Using 2x banks of Flash caps which are charged in parallel and discharged in series. Using a piezoelectric grill igniter to ionize the tube and trigger the flash lamp.

Its definitely a fun little laser. I'm having a blast putting little marks into some crappy C@si0 optics I have laying around. I don't have any good enough lenses to achieve air breakdown. I gotta order a focusing off Eudmond. I also don't really have enough flash capacitors here to get over 600V. Man, flash circuits are expensive! Might see about asking Walmart if I can have their old ones.

Edit: According to this calculator I'm running mine at about 9 joules input. http://www.electronics2000.co.uk/calc/capacitor-charge-calculator.php
 
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:D
SSY-2%20Burn%20%28Cropped%29.jpg
:D
 
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LS -- If that's the raw beam on a grey antistatic
bag, NOW get a lens.... 100 mm FL with AR coating
and you can see burn. Charcoal is neat !!!
I have not achieved air ionization with one of these
yet but I'm working on it.
I may have to build a new laser with some spare parts.
HMike

By the way Jeff -- You are in a safe power range for the laser.
Good work.
 
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Good to see solid science being brought into this thread! Excellent work, gents!

I still think your qswitch may be faulty, HMike. That is if the PFN isn't the issue, anyway. Did you ever get any leads on sourcing an original PFN?
 
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LS -- If that's the raw beam on a grey antistatic
bag, NOW get a lens.... 100 mm FL with AR coating

Yes it sure-ly is. I would order a lens right this second if I had the money. Does anyone
know anything about the lenses inside the A and M140s? It looks like one might work and
potentially cost almost nothing with all the projectors being stripped down to the bone for
diodes.
 
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I don't know much about them but I'd be willing to put them in front of my SSY without hesitation. I don't really have much of a use for them.
 
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Sig ---
I don't think this unit has a Qcell in it. I couldn't find it when I took it apart. It has that 45 Degree window in there between the end of the rod and the HR mirror.
I got two capacitor blocks for these and one had a HV leak. It wouldn't take a full charge and my megger showed the leak at 500 Volts. I broke it apart and found a 25 uH coil and 5 - 5.2 mFd caps. I've never tried the working block yet but it measures 26 mFd across the input leads.
HMike
 
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Aye I remember you mentioned that (45deg plate on SSY2 and one bad PFN), didn't know you didn't try the good one yet though. I was referring to the SSY1 since you hadn't achieved air breakdown, but again I thought you had tried the good PFN, so I thought it must be the old qswitch.

Shame about the bad PFN, you might want to try separating the caps and test individually with the megger to route out the bad one(s).
 
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Sig --
After I broke the potted PFN apart, all the caps test OK as I recall. The problem must have been a carbon path in that damn hard potting compound. I beat it apart with a hammer and chisel.
I long ago got air ionization with my SSY-1 using a poor 5" FL glass lens. I damaged the glass on both sides - 5 shots :-(
I have too many projects ---------
HMike

The PFN's I got are for the "SSY-2" . The SSY-1 was powered simply by ~ 12 Joules with no coil.
 
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The optics from the M140 projector don't fare too well with the SSY-1. I tried two different lenses with the same result. A small star shape crack in the center of the lens. The crack forms during the first shot buy doesn't seem to get any larger with repeated use. One of the lenses I used was sitting on top of the big red LED. So its as close to 1064nm as I can get. I don't suppose any of the otger optics would hold up too well. Though the coatings seem to be perfectly fine.

Could this mean that the lenses are glass and not quartz?

Image: http://imgur.com/cHPlrCK
 
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Ulao -- (John) ---
I got the carbon bar stock.
PM me your address and I'll send you a chunk!
HMike

Hey John --- This is my first Pulse sensor I machined from carbon. The dust isn't too bad....
It is 0.924" OD, 0.2275" thick and has a 0.070" thick x0.70" Dia target area. I can thin that down if you
think it would work better.

9421-ndyag-sensor-copy.jpg
 
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