HeNe Video Disk PSU ?'s

I am trying to find a list showing which old disc players have HeNes and big cubes- over 100 listed on cREEPbAY but i want only the pre SS models.
\I was not able to find that exact info at Sams-its prolly there but eludes me-do all LDPs have same or similar galvo mirror set-ups?-- and are there useful optics in all of them?- never been inside of a disc player(yet).

thanks for any help

len

nice thread and great photos +rep for it sir

hakzaw1 said:

I am trying to find a list showing which old disc players have HeNes and big cubes- over 100 listed on cREEPbAY but i want only the pre SS models.
\I was not able to find that exact info at Sams-its prolly there but eludes me-do all LDPs have same or similar galvo mirror set-ups?-- and are there useful optics in all of them?- never been inside of a disc player(yet).

thanks for any help

len

nice thread and great photos +rep for it sir

Click to expand...

Thanks!

I only know as much as I do from just this one player I tore apart, and I forgot most of it! A listing of laser disk players showing the type of laser & such would be nice. If anyone knows, please drop a link here pointing to such, thanks!

I don't know what you mean by 'big cubes' or 'pre SS models'

These mirrors are really slow! I downloaded a laser scanning software package that uses my soundcard and the patterns being generated are really rounded off. Like a square test pattern looks almost perfectly circular no matter what adjustments I tried. Maybe I'm supposed to mod the soundcard to do this right, but I'm not too impressed with these mirrors and I'm seeing other opinions that these are not worth considering as a scanner set-up. But maybe if I could slow down the software and use a high-power laser, I could use these mirrors to burn patterns.

Beam splitting/combining cubes
some older video projectors have them too.
Solid State red diodes- vs gas HeNe plasma-like yours has.

I know they are slow- i have another project for them.

hakzaw1 said:

Beam splitting/combining cubes
some older video projectors have them too.
Solid State red diodes- vs gas HeNe plasma-like yours has.

I know they are slow- i have another project for them.

Click to expand...

I somewhat recall that player had a sled that measured something like 12 by 6 inches, one-piece cast aluminum that was machined. I think I still have a couple mirrors that were used to bounce the beam 90° down the end, and then again to return along the other side before hitting the x/y mirrors. There were a few other objects involved with that beam path that I didn't know what to do with at that time. It was all very substantial items that were designed to be screwed straight down to a flat plane.

I've been saving those cubes from dvd burners, that might be what you mean? From the top they look like a pair of triangles making a square. I think there was one of those, to send a return to the sensor. And larger too, makes sense now.

Cashing a paycheck tomorrow, I think I'll be looking at how much that second-hand shop wanted for that player. There's a bunch of video disks in album sleeves in a box next to it, I hope it's not a package deal!

I'm thinking of using the x/y mirrors to play with the cat. But wood burning sounds interesting, would those reflect 808nM?

thats what they are two prisms glued togther- I need BIG- got plenty tiny.

hakzaw1 said:

thats what they are two prisms glued togther- I need BIG- got plenty tiny.

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I meant to say@hakzaw - what advantage do you get from a bigger cube?

IMO bigger cube are a lot easier to work with- even just a little bigger- I like the ones 1/2 inch or larger. Good for combining two lasers of the same nm. Not 100% efficient but IIRC easier than knife-edging. Some cubes are coated for better output with certain nms but AFAIK most any cube will combine two beams somewhat.

+rep for starting a thread on one of my fav pastimes- scaving. too bad I am not as proficient at putting stuff back together.

thanks

hakzaw1 said:

IMO bigger cube are a lot easier to work with- even just a little bigger- I like the ones 1/2 inch or larger. Good for combining two lasers of the same nm. Not 100% efficient but IIRC easier than knife-edging. Some cubes are coated for better output with certain nms but AFAIK most any cube will combine two beams somewhat.

+rep for starting a thread on one of my fav pastimes- scaving. too bad I am not as profecient at putting stuff back together.

thanks

Click to expand...

I'm slowly getting up to speed here:yh:

Being easier to work with doesn't sound like the light is affected differently, coatings being a secondary issue. I'm guessing that it's an issue of getting a beam centered on a cube? But then, if it's necessary to be exactly on the same spot with the second beam, that precision seems to be needed anyways....a larger cube will be less likely to sit strangely in a holding fixture? Keeping fingerprints away from the center of the cube faces?

I've been looking at industrial laser designs. One I've seen that combines several diodes for welding doesn't use cubes. It's an array of partial mirrors that are tilted at a 45° so as to redirect a beam 90° and then send it right through the row of mirrors to a fiber coupler. I'm still not sure how that makes sense because it seems that a lot of beam power is lost off of the backsides of each mirror. They had what looked like an absorber pad behind the mirrors, like a slab of charcoal. Maybe the coatings are what make it work to an advantage? Otherwise, an array of four diodes are certainly going to be combined perfectly to a single output spot, I can see that part going well. I think I should've bookmarked that. They said what the power of each diode was, and what the combined total was. But I don't remember the numbers. There's an indication of power losses implied, that I ought to have noted.:yabbem:

So I got that VideoDisk Player, an RCA model SFT 100 W. Brought it home, tore into it, no laser!

Oh yeah, it says 'capacitance electronic disc system' on the cover. I think that means - 'no laser inside' or something?

Well I posted some photos on this in the gas laser section for anyone who's looking at getting a gas laser by purchasing a VideoDisc Player. Stay away from those CED's!:banghead: