- Joined
- Nov 2, 2012
- Messages
- 626
- Points
- 43
I bought this laser from ebay a couple of years ago, before I joined LPF, actually. It has sat under my bed ever since, never even powered up. I just never got around to it I guess.
Until about a week ago! It didn't seem right to list it in my sig without taking some pictures of it, so I pulled it out and wired it up. There was a suspense-ridden delay when I turned on the power and nothing happened. But it was just the built-in CDRH delay, which I could disable by cutting the purple wire on the outside of the power brick. I'll just leave the delay as it is, though, since it doesn't hurt anything.
Model and serial number, manufacture date, and all that good stuff.
Fairly typical warning label; CDRH class IIIa. The seller claimed it metered at 2.4mW:
Power supply model number label:
Size comparison between the Melles-Griot, a Uniphase (not JDSU, old-school Uniphase, pre-merger) 632nm laser, and a C6 host:
Dot comparison between 543.5nm @ 2.4mW and 632.8nm @ >1mW:
Attempt at a color comparison; 543nm, 532nm, 520nm. I diverged the handhelds out to try reducing the intensity to something the camera can handle. The 532nm is just too bright (100mW), I don't have anything comparable in the >5mW power class but you can sort of see the difference. The 520nm is clearly bluer, however, despite being 50mW and still wiping out the camera to a large degree.
Reflecting from a mirror #1:
The color of this laser reminds me of "Romulan green", if you've ever seen a D'deridex warbird getting mad at something, you know what I'm talking about:
Reflecting from a mirror #2:
Reflecting from a mirror #3. The purple light is some kind of emission from the laser tube/aperture:
Dot reflected from mirror. This mirror was formerly used in an auto shop to inspect hard-to-see car parts, so it's not too smooth. Makes a neat scatter pattern though. The two rings are reflections off the front of my camera:
Aperture. At certain angles, a bright purple light can be seen emanating from the tube. It's sort-of visible here:
Macro shot of the aperture. The purple glow is somewhat visible. The swirling particles in the aperture bore are incense smoke:
Until about a week ago! It didn't seem right to list it in my sig without taking some pictures of it, so I pulled it out and wired it up. There was a suspense-ridden delay when I turned on the power and nothing happened. But it was just the built-in CDRH delay, which I could disable by cutting the purple wire on the outside of the power brick. I'll just leave the delay as it is, though, since it doesn't hurt anything.
Model and serial number, manufacture date, and all that good stuff.
Fairly typical warning label; CDRH class IIIa. The seller claimed it metered at 2.4mW:
Power supply model number label:
Size comparison between the Melles-Griot, a Uniphase (not JDSU, old-school Uniphase, pre-merger) 632nm laser, and a C6 host:
Dot comparison between 543.5nm @ 2.4mW and 632.8nm @ >1mW:
Attempt at a color comparison; 543nm, 532nm, 520nm. I diverged the handhelds out to try reducing the intensity to something the camera can handle. The 532nm is just too bright (100mW), I don't have anything comparable in the >5mW power class but you can sort of see the difference. The 520nm is clearly bluer, however, despite being 50mW and still wiping out the camera to a large degree.
Reflecting from a mirror #1:
The color of this laser reminds me of "Romulan green", if you've ever seen a D'deridex warbird getting mad at something, you know what I'm talking about:
Reflecting from a mirror #2:
Reflecting from a mirror #3. The purple light is some kind of emission from the laser tube/aperture:
Dot reflected from mirror. This mirror was formerly used in an auto shop to inspect hard-to-see car parts, so it's not too smooth. Makes a neat scatter pattern though. The two rings are reflections off the front of my camera:
Aperture. At certain angles, a bright purple light can be seen emanating from the tube. It's sort-of visible here:
Macro shot of the aperture. The purple glow is somewhat visible. The swirling particles in the aperture bore are incense smoke:
Last edited:
