2.5W Argon <$900

This could be yours for as little as $630 shipped.

For those that don't know, It may or may not be convertible to CW. As it is, it will only pulse up to 30 seconds. On the upside, it is air cooled and single phase. It is a smaller bore than mine, so about half the power, but also has slightly better beam specs than mine. Heruur might be willing to assist with CW conversion.

Are all the HGM5's not the same?

I've been eying this one for soooo long. This is a great deal for anyone who's interested. It's been listed three times now, the original buy it now was 995!

No, they're not. There are also other HGM units, some of which can not be modified for CW.

looks really cheap for me

The hgm model 5 can be made CW by hacking the power supplier to act like a constant current source, recommend running at about 1.5W for best life >20K hours, at close to 3W peak power the power supplier as it is starts protesting though.

If you add a few more beer can capacitors and serious busing (READ: WELDER CABLE!) to the b+ pre-swicher side you can get it up to almost 5W before the tube is in any danger provided you cut a hole for an extra fan in the ducting of the main tube. They built these lasers really well for an ion laser!

See you can get almost 5W from one

This is good to hear! Considering I just closed a deal last night to get the laser in the original post.

It should be here in a couple weeks. I got a steal of a deal on it!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220287855071&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

(auction closed with no bids because we closed the deal outside of ebay)

Gus --

I agree with what Chris says here. Many Ion lasers will go over spec for 30 seconds -- then shut down.
35 AMPS Are you nutz????? Turn off the furnace for winter..........
You now understand better the workings of an Ion -- Congrats

Mike

that is a good deal - you get a lpm with it too