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I've been thinking about a homemade green laser for a while, so recently I got a couple of Nd:YVO4+KTP composite crystals and a 500mw 808nm diode on ebay, all for less than £20. Here's my initial set up: After lots of fiddling I had the beam focussed in to the crystal and 532nm flying out...

Ok great, so water in at the mirror along with HV, and ground and water out at the aperture? That's easy to remember, electron and water flow in the same direction as the beam.

Thanks for all the advice, but I'm redesigning the electrodes so the same thing won't happen again! Watch this space! Thank you so much for the tube and power supply Dave, I'm yet to fire it up, I'll make a mounting set up and a beam stop before that but me and Dad are really excited to get it...

Yep I'm going for a flowing gas laser. Have you got any idea as to when you'll be in Bath Dave? I'm going for careful chipping and possibly an old tool in the lathe with lots of care. The epoxy certainly took well. 593°?

Yep borosilicate glass tubing, I think one of the mirror mounts took a knock when I was clearing the worktop yesterday to get ready to align the mirrors. Thankfully I have more glass tubing, I just hope I can get all the glass off the electrodes. What layout Dave? I can't see anything!

Absolutely massive setback today.... The glass laser tube has cracked. I've pulled the electrodes out, I need to clean them and re fit them with a new tube and better support.

That's amazing you get stuff from all over the world. Great, I'll email you my address and we can talk times and the like, thank you! Update on the laser: Water pump sorted, just need to plumb in the cooling, and I'm considering a radiator or refrigerator for the cooling water, and possible...

Ah that's good, I'm just outside of Bath on the south side, would it be easier for us to meet somewhere on your route or do you want to drop the stuff off at mine? What's the plywood for? Do you ever get any one off jobs or is it more big contracts?

I should be able to manage that, where abouts in Bristol is that? I've googled it and can't find anything

What kind of machining do you do? I've been using my dad's colchester student lathe and dawe westbury mill for all my work, it's very nice to have large machines working well within their comfort zone, it made machining the mirror mounts a breeze.

That would be great thanks Dave, what days and at what kind of time? I'm back doing my A levels so may have to arrange it so you meet with my dad but I do have a bit of spare time.

That all looks absolutely great Dave, the high voltage from that PSU should certainly help get over worries about my vacuum pump not being up to scratch. Would me picking it up or you dropping it off be easier for you?

What kind of bore is that 80 watt tube you're sorting me out with Dave? Just wondering how the current area ratio shapes up to my 11mm bore.

Yep I got diodes for that specification to operate with the highest frequency of my half bridge flyback driver, I think around 40KHz. But now I'm being kindly given a DC power supply by Dave they are left for another project.

Thanks Dave that's great, I'm happy to get to Salisbury to get them soonish or would it be easier to drop them off? I'm doing this project to a deadline so I'm conscious of time!

Ok well that's fine, TTL could be pretty useful as well actually, I'll scrounge hard online for a manual too. Mine are good for my age and my dad's an electrical engineer so we'll put our heads together!

That's great thanks, I' have space to keep it till I feel like having a closer look, testing it and possibly acquiring some optics. My father runs a small engineering operation and we're planning on a workshop rebuild soon so we may even set it up with an X Y table, the mounts could be useful...

Great, just emailed and PMed you, thank you very much for this.

That would be fantastic, I'll see if I can get my dad to give me a lift to yours soon if that's ok? And have a look at what you've got when it comes to the tubes, I could be well be interested in salvage or a worn out one of those too... and I'll definitely have one of those power supplies...

That should be plenty voltage! What current do they supply, and I assume they are constant current sources? And can I adjust the voltage to the needs of my tube? I imagine that'll certainly work, what kind of money would you be asking? I was looking for a neon sign transformer to put on one...