Hello everyone!
I just joined your great forum and wanted to introduce myself. I'm and oldie (62-year old grandfather of 6) and a newbie both to the forum and almost a newbie to lasers.
I'm a retired research engineer from the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at Edwards AFB in Southern California. I ran a small lab focusing on using electricity for space propulsion, mainly arcjets and magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters (think impulse engines for the starship Enterprise.) Yes, the AF really thinks that far ahead.
I retired at the ripe old age of 41 to pursue my own research interests, which can be browsed on my website at: http://www.waynesthisandthat.com. This is a non-commercial site. I don't sell or advertise anything. It consists of 400 pages covering well over 200 topics boasting 4000 images and over 1,000,000 words. It's a good example, or warning, of what happens when someone has too much time on their hands.
For the last two years I've been doing a lot of work with ultra high power lightsabers (30+ watt LED strings) for the FX lightsaber forum. To sample the type of threads I hope to contribute to the LPF, log onto the FX forum and search for Supernova.
My interest in lasers spawned from a small page created for my website many years ago comparing green laser pointers for use in astronomy. Back then the most powerful laser I could find was 50 watts and it cost $70. I recently received the URL for a video about a laser popping 100 balloons (laughingsquid.com/popping-100-black-balloons-with-a-pocket-blu-ray-laser/.) This piqued my interest in how the technology had advanced over the years, so here I am: an oldie and a newbie rolled into one package.
The only lasers I have right now are 5, 20 and 50-watt green pointers. I plan of expanding this.
After spending many hours browsing the excellent laser pointer review threads, I've decided I'd like to get in on the new Jetlasers group buy. I'm interested in the Jetlasers PL-E Pro 800mw 532nm pointer.
It's my intent to create a new page for my website about the pleasures and pitfalls of someone new to lasers entering the high power laser pointer field. In addition to a detailed report on testing my laser I plan on showing all the different ways they can be used, in the hope that I'll be able to contribute something useful.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in creating and maintaining this forum. It's an outstanding resource and the main reason I've decided to give lasers a try. I find the threads to be well written with professional quality data. Most importantly, participants appear to have a mutual respect for each other even when embracing different opinions. This is rarer than you might think. (You don't even want to know what happened when I joined an Elvis Presley forum and started a thread saying that while Elvis was great, his accomplishments paled in comparison to Bing Crosby's. That was years ago and there are still people on that forum burning me in effigy.)
I just joined your great forum and wanted to introduce myself. I'm and oldie (62-year old grandfather of 6) and a newbie both to the forum and almost a newbie to lasers.
I'm a retired research engineer from the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at Edwards AFB in Southern California. I ran a small lab focusing on using electricity for space propulsion, mainly arcjets and magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters (think impulse engines for the starship Enterprise.) Yes, the AF really thinks that far ahead.
I retired at the ripe old age of 41 to pursue my own research interests, which can be browsed on my website at: http://www.waynesthisandthat.com. This is a non-commercial site. I don't sell or advertise anything. It consists of 400 pages covering well over 200 topics boasting 4000 images and over 1,000,000 words. It's a good example, or warning, of what happens when someone has too much time on their hands.
For the last two years I've been doing a lot of work with ultra high power lightsabers (30+ watt LED strings) for the FX lightsaber forum. To sample the type of threads I hope to contribute to the LPF, log onto the FX forum and search for Supernova.
My interest in lasers spawned from a small page created for my website many years ago comparing green laser pointers for use in astronomy. Back then the most powerful laser I could find was 50 watts and it cost $70. I recently received the URL for a video about a laser popping 100 balloons (laughingsquid.com/popping-100-black-balloons-with-a-pocket-blu-ray-laser/.) This piqued my interest in how the technology had advanced over the years, so here I am: an oldie and a newbie rolled into one package.
The only lasers I have right now are 5, 20 and 50-watt green pointers. I plan of expanding this.
After spending many hours browsing the excellent laser pointer review threads, I've decided I'd like to get in on the new Jetlasers group buy. I'm interested in the Jetlasers PL-E Pro 800mw 532nm pointer.
It's my intent to create a new page for my website about the pleasures and pitfalls of someone new to lasers entering the high power laser pointer field. In addition to a detailed report on testing my laser I plan on showing all the different ways they can be used, in the hope that I'll be able to contribute something useful.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in creating and maintaining this forum. It's an outstanding resource and the main reason I've decided to give lasers a try. I find the threads to be well written with professional quality data. Most importantly, participants appear to have a mutual respect for each other even when embracing different opinions. This is rarer than you might think. (You don't even want to know what happened when I joined an Elvis Presley forum and started a thread saying that while Elvis was great, his accomplishments paled in comparison to Bing Crosby's. That was years ago and there are still people on that forum burning me in effigy.)
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