Recent content by Moto154

Thanks for the rep. I am willing to make an in depth tutorial on how to build this if enough are interested

This entire laser was a total of around $250

Here is a more elaborate and better video of my project! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Irr6munwdU&feature=share

If you caught the HeNe laser in the youtube video, I can give an idiotic story about it. The tube is bare with the electrodes exposed, 1.4kV at 4mA. I was moving the unit around, while it was on, and accidentally made contact with both electrodes, one for each hand. Let's just say it sucked. A...

Oh yeah, if I have the mirrors aligned well, the burn mark is a perfect circle. Yeah, I can see this thing breaking somehow in the near future, but it is certainly cool!

Here are some pictures

Aligning the mirrors was definitely a pain. I used a small .8mW HeNe laser to align them. I don't have my mounts secured as well as I could, so they can get knocked off alignment pretty easily. The mounts are adjustable also.

If you saw my previous thread, you know I have been working on building an Nd: YAG laser. It's completed now just as I go off to college. I don't have any pictures on this laptop so just watch the youtube video I made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Irr6munwdU

The elliptical chamber is the most efficient way to pump the rod with a linear flash lamp; however, a close packed system will still be decently efficient, efficient enough. If I were to paint the soda with barium sulfate, the system would be much more efficient than the polished aluminum

A tiny flashlamp for a tiny rod. The rod is about 40mm and the flashlamp discharge length is similar in length (off by a few mm). I already have mirrors and mirror mounts. Hopefully the soda can reflector will work as a pumping chamber, and it should based off of the math (although I cannot...

Portability is definitely a plus. For now I'm using a 12V wall adapter to power the cooling fan, but I could easily use a 12V battery or use a boost converter with a lower voltage battery (as long as the current is sufficient).

This project will not be completed until I determine how I will make a pumping chamber. I am pushing the lamp I have slightly, but this is not worrisome. Theoretically, I would only need around 8mJ of energy to reach threshold (If the system were 100% efficient, this means I need at least 8mJ...

Laser diodes have resonator cavities, meaning the semiconductor p and n junction are sandwiched between two mirrors so to speak; although, the "mirrors" are often not conventional. As far as I know LEDs are simply light emitters. Laser diodes are true lasers since the light is amplified...

diachi, thank you for the reply, very helpful. I know styropyro made a video building a pistol YAG with a pre-built YAG head; this seemed to have an output I'd be satisfied with. I'm sure his YAG pistol output a lot more power than it seemed considering it's pulsed. I definitely need to do...

My last day of high school is next Tuesday so I won't be in college until the fall. I know it's dangerous. When doing this I will have safety at the top of priority list. I'm looking to use a fairly small rod and I'm not looking to get very high output power; I'd imagine this would be a...