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WARNING: The following content may contain awesome or otherwise blow your mind! Not responsible for lost brain cells or possible drooling that may occur :tinfoil:
Ok, now that that's out of the way...
At long last....I have fully restored my old 1995 Omni 643-RYB head into full operation!
I purchased this head a long time ago. and It has long since been my dream to own a whitelight gas laser. A while back I managed to pick up this head for about $600 from a retired lab at a university and was assured it was working. I got it and quickly found that the head had a rattle in the cathode, and the power supply switch broke on me (some of you may know already about this)
Luckily I found another of the same supply shortly thereafter by total chance for another $100 and bought it. It wasn't in quite as nice a cosmetic shape, but a quick test found it to be working and it lit the head with minimal issues, despite it being shelved for a long time. (7 months ish with about 1124 hours IIRC) I assume the clinking in the cathode is the getter having popped off and wandering around but I can't be sure.
I quickly found that the output was weak, struggling to get even a few mW of 568nm. After tweaking, I got about 9mW, and it was a disaster....a speckled mess. After finally finding all the allens needed, I disassembled it fully and cleaned the mirrors, as well as the pickoff. It turned out that the light feedback pickoff was so dirty, it appeared sandblasted and totally ruined, and even rough to the touch. Acetone and methonol had minimal effect so i bathed it in running water and hand detergent and gently used my thumb, and after several gentle washes it was pretty much immaculate again. Re-installed everything, re-aligned it and tweaked it for max power. A whopping clean 36mW finally! fairly respectable despite its age.
Top to bottom: 568,496,488,483,476nm
But wait...its an RYB head...I should be getting Red too...
After some probing with my trusty red SP-120 which I had running happily on my desk at the time, I found that the HR was passing red quite a lot, despite the OC reflecting Red. Its optics (or at least the HR) had been swapped out! Whoever the last person to use it was, had probably changed the mirrors for an experiment, and not swapped them back before it got sold/put into storage. I despaired...new whitelight optics are VERY expensive.
but then...the impossible happened.
Ionlaser555 here got 2 mixed gasses, but no power supplies. We had began talking by coincidence and found that his two heads were an 568 head, and an RYB that was no longer gas intact! I eventually worked up the courage to ask after thinking about it for a while and flipped out when he said he'd sell me the RYB optics. I eagerly pay, and then await them in the mail. After another full cleaning and a swap of mirrors I'm now lasing nearly 40mW of White! So I'd like to take the time to thank him for his contribution. I couldn't have done it without you!
Finally!
Full output top to bottom: 647,568,488,483,476nm
And I even get 676 to pop in under the right circumstances. (not shown) The more I run it, the more it seems to pick itself up off the ground.
With a second OC mirror I have for this laser, (nearly the same as the HR in fact) I can create an intracavity white-light. This also allows an additional gain to show through and I can recouple it broadband to get all of the lines, though weaker, and at the expense of their beam profiles.
Full intracavity output top to bottom: 676,647,568,502,496,488,483,476,472nm
And I even occasionally got 515 and 467 to flicker in occasionally on a very stable surface.
Not too shabby for a old clunker eh?
Ok, now that that's out of the way...
At long last....I have fully restored my old 1995 Omni 643-RYB head into full operation!
I purchased this head a long time ago. and It has long since been my dream to own a whitelight gas laser. A while back I managed to pick up this head for about $600 from a retired lab at a university and was assured it was working. I got it and quickly found that the head had a rattle in the cathode, and the power supply switch broke on me (some of you may know already about this)
Luckily I found another of the same supply shortly thereafter by total chance for another $100 and bought it. It wasn't in quite as nice a cosmetic shape, but a quick test found it to be working and it lit the head with minimal issues, despite it being shelved for a long time. (7 months ish with about 1124 hours IIRC) I assume the clinking in the cathode is the getter having popped off and wandering around but I can't be sure.
I quickly found that the output was weak, struggling to get even a few mW of 568nm. After tweaking, I got about 9mW, and it was a disaster....a speckled mess. After finally finding all the allens needed, I disassembled it fully and cleaned the mirrors, as well as the pickoff. It turned out that the light feedback pickoff was so dirty, it appeared sandblasted and totally ruined, and even rough to the touch. Acetone and methonol had minimal effect so i bathed it in running water and hand detergent and gently used my thumb, and after several gentle washes it was pretty much immaculate again. Re-installed everything, re-aligned it and tweaked it for max power. A whopping clean 36mW finally! fairly respectable despite its age.
Top to bottom: 568,496,488,483,476nm
But wait...its an RYB head...I should be getting Red too...
After some probing with my trusty red SP-120 which I had running happily on my desk at the time, I found that the HR was passing red quite a lot, despite the OC reflecting Red. Its optics (or at least the HR) had been swapped out! Whoever the last person to use it was, had probably changed the mirrors for an experiment, and not swapped them back before it got sold/put into storage. I despaired...new whitelight optics are VERY expensive.
but then...the impossible happened.
Ionlaser555 here got 2 mixed gasses, but no power supplies. We had began talking by coincidence and found that his two heads were an 568 head, and an RYB that was no longer gas intact! I eventually worked up the courage to ask after thinking about it for a while and flipped out when he said he'd sell me the RYB optics. I eagerly pay, and then await them in the mail. After another full cleaning and a swap of mirrors I'm now lasing nearly 40mW of White! So I'd like to take the time to thank him for his contribution. I couldn't have done it without you!
Finally!
Full output top to bottom: 647,568,488,483,476nm
And I even get 676 to pop in under the right circumstances. (not shown) The more I run it, the more it seems to pick itself up off the ground.
With a second OC mirror I have for this laser, (nearly the same as the HR in fact) I can create an intracavity white-light. This also allows an additional gain to show through and I can recouple it broadband to get all of the lines, though weaker, and at the expense of their beam profiles.
Full intracavity output top to bottom: 676,647,568,502,496,488,483,476,472nm
And I even occasionally got 515 and 467 to flicker in occasionally on a very stable surface.
Not too shabby for a old clunker eh?
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