- Joined
- Sep 22, 2010
- Messages
- 1,360
- Points
- 48
A little background first...
Towards the end of June I came down with a bad case of laserus needas anotheritis and decided the best way to cure it was with one of the nice multiline argon lasers that daguin was selling.
I know I'm preaching to the choir but daguin was great to deal with. Even with family in town he still answered all my PMs within 24 hours even though I told him don't worry about it. Everything was well packed and arrived intact. If you've never seen an Argon laser beam in person it's a sight to behold. After about 45 minutes the room where I had it setup was feeling like a sauna so I shut it down. Later that evening I fired it up again to take pics when it happened. *BANG* To make a long story short the cable clamp that help the umbilical came loose and contacted one of the filament/cathode leads causing one helluva an arc followed by one helluva bang. Turns out it fried the power supply and after talking with daguin he gave me a very nice deal on another power supply. As you can probably guess the laser still worked (why else would I be posting this thread) once the new supply arrived. I was very lucky that when it shorted it shorted directly to ground and not say to the laser housing.
Ok enough rambling on to the pics.
2011-07-12_10-16-40pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The inside of a box style JDS Uniphase argon laser showing the tube. Unlike an HeNe there's not much to see tubewise.
2011-07-13_11-43-55pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
You may have to look at the full sized on flickr but if you look at the clamp under the yellow wires you can see part of the scorch mark. After tightening the hell out of the ring that holds the clamp in place I made an insulator pad out of 4 layers of 600V rated electrical tape to prevent it from happening again.
2011-07-25_09-58-14pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The five lines it produces at idle (4A).
2011-07-25_10-01-01pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
Six of the seven lines it can produce at 10A, full power. Also seen is the cyan main beam.
2011-07-25_10-03-57pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
A better shot of the 6 lines.
2011-07-29_10-27-03pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
ML Argon and 473nm blue.
2011-07-29_10-26-30pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
ML Argon and 473nm blue.
2011-07-29_10-35-22pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
Ah S#!T crossed the beams!
As seen above a CD works decently to split the beam into its individual lines but as daguin said a good diffraction mirror is worth its weight in gold. hakzaw1 offered to sell me an extra one he had along with some other goodies and after seeing the results that others had with the same one I jumped on the opportunity. Along with the diffraction mirror he also included a piece of normal polished mirror, a piece of diffraction grating, two pieces of lumia glass, and a couple laser warning stickers.
2011-08-06_10-03-53pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The main beam is the rightmost bottom one.
2011-08-06_10-10-46pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
A couple of the lines don't show up in this picture unfortunately.
Some shots of my setup using the mirror and one of the pieces of lumia glass.
2011-08-07_09-34-53pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
2011-08-07_09-39-10pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
2011-08-07_09-50-16pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
2011-08-07_09-50-16pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
Playing with the focal point a bit.
2011-08-07_09-52-59pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The white thing hanging from the mirror is a small piece of tissue to keep the clip from scratching the mirror.
Now this has me baffled. For several of the pictures I took I was between 12 and 18" from the beam and/or mirror so to keep fram taking a ~80mw beam to the face (it was running at ~8A) I wore my glasses from OEM Laser Systems. While looking towards the laser I noticed I could still see the beam and part of the pattern on the wall. This shouldn't happen because the glasses I have are rated for OD3+ for 385-540nm which covers all the visible light lines of an argon. I thought maybe it was the 363.8nm UV line causing the wall to fluoresce but that doesn't explain why I could see the beam coming from the laser since that's below what people can see. They're also rated at OD5+ for 180-395nm. The orange tinting is from the laser glasses. For reference when looking at the beam from a 1+W 445m, it is completely blocked.
2011-08-07_09-56-33pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
There are more pics on my flickr page in the argon set and there's also a video I made but I need to edit it since half way though I tried to add a bit more fog and the button stuck so all you see for part of it is fog shooting everywhere.
Towards the end of June I came down with a bad case of laserus needas anotheritis and decided the best way to cure it was with one of the nice multiline argon lasers that daguin was selling.
I know I'm preaching to the choir but daguin was great to deal with. Even with family in town he still answered all my PMs within 24 hours even though I told him don't worry about it. Everything was well packed and arrived intact. If you've never seen an Argon laser beam in person it's a sight to behold. After about 45 minutes the room where I had it setup was feeling like a sauna so I shut it down. Later that evening I fired it up again to take pics when it happened. *BANG* To make a long story short the cable clamp that help the umbilical came loose and contacted one of the filament/cathode leads causing one helluva an arc followed by one helluva bang. Turns out it fried the power supply and after talking with daguin he gave me a very nice deal on another power supply. As you can probably guess the laser still worked (why else would I be posting this thread) once the new supply arrived. I was very lucky that when it shorted it shorted directly to ground and not say to the laser housing.
Ok enough rambling on to the pics.
2011-07-12_10-16-40pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The inside of a box style JDS Uniphase argon laser showing the tube. Unlike an HeNe there's not much to see tubewise.
2011-07-13_11-43-55pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
You may have to look at the full sized on flickr but if you look at the clamp under the yellow wires you can see part of the scorch mark. After tightening the hell out of the ring that holds the clamp in place I made an insulator pad out of 4 layers of 600V rated electrical tape to prevent it from happening again.
2011-07-25_09-58-14pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The five lines it produces at idle (4A).
2011-07-25_10-01-01pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
Six of the seven lines it can produce at 10A, full power. Also seen is the cyan main beam.
2011-07-25_10-03-57pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
A better shot of the 6 lines.
2011-07-29_10-27-03pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
ML Argon and 473nm blue.
2011-07-29_10-26-30pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
ML Argon and 473nm blue.
2011-07-29_10-35-22pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
Ah S#!T crossed the beams!
As seen above a CD works decently to split the beam into its individual lines but as daguin said a good diffraction mirror is worth its weight in gold. hakzaw1 offered to sell me an extra one he had along with some other goodies and after seeing the results that others had with the same one I jumped on the opportunity. Along with the diffraction mirror he also included a piece of normal polished mirror, a piece of diffraction grating, two pieces of lumia glass, and a couple laser warning stickers.
2011-08-06_10-03-53pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The main beam is the rightmost bottom one.
2011-08-06_10-10-46pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
A couple of the lines don't show up in this picture unfortunately.
Some shots of my setup using the mirror and one of the pieces of lumia glass.
2011-08-07_09-34-53pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
2011-08-07_09-39-10pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
2011-08-07_09-50-16pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
2011-08-07_09-50-16pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
Playing with the focal point a bit.
2011-08-07_09-52-59pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
The white thing hanging from the mirror is a small piece of tissue to keep the clip from scratching the mirror.
Now this has me baffled. For several of the pictures I took I was between 12 and 18" from the beam and/or mirror so to keep fram taking a ~80mw beam to the face (it was running at ~8A) I wore my glasses from OEM Laser Systems. While looking towards the laser I noticed I could still see the beam and part of the pattern on the wall. This shouldn't happen because the glasses I have are rated for OD3+ for 385-540nm which covers all the visible light lines of an argon. I thought maybe it was the 363.8nm UV line causing the wall to fluoresce but that doesn't explain why I could see the beam coming from the laser since that's below what people can see. They're also rated at OD5+ for 180-395nm. The orange tinting is from the laser glasses. For reference when looking at the beam from a 1+W 445m, it is completely blocked.
2011-08-07_09-56-33pm by ltkernelpanic, on Flickr
There are more pics on my flickr page in the argon set and there's also a video I made but I need to edit it since half way though I tried to add a bit more fog and the button stuck so all you see for part of it is fog shooting everywhere.
Last edited:
