Trevor
0
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2009
- Messages
- 4,386
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- 113
Last night I fired up my Lasos multiline argon for a maintenance burn. I had fired it up a few days ago, but it needed to flicker for a solid minute before it was willing to fire. I thought this may have been due to me not burning it long enough during these burns (is one hour sufficient?).
So, I got everything set up downstairs in the usual room that I work with lasers in. It's about 15m long - quite nicely sized. I fired up the fan on the top of the laser and then turned it on (at idle). It flickered for about a minute then finally came on. While I waited for it to warm up so that I could turn the current up, I got out the prisms that I had gotten from Jack at Optotronics. I snapped this picture at idle:
Several minutes later, I began slowly turning the current up. I finally got the laser up to full power and noticed something strange across the room. I walked over and took another picture.
I was mystified. It is certainly the cleanest TEM01 that I have ever seen. But what could be causing this? I've been quite religious about always running the fan when the laser is running, sucking air out the top of the head. I noticed that when I turned the laser back down to idle current, it hopped back into TEM00 on all lines, but, as I turned the current up, the mode on the blue lines shifted into TEM01. Alignment issues and temperature came to mind. It lases quite nicely at what appears to be rated power (I haven't actually measured it, though I will tonight), so I'm not sure it's alignment. Could the fan not be moving enough air to keep the tube happy? What else could be at play here?
Am I doing something glaringly wrong? :undecided:
-Trevor
So, I got everything set up downstairs in the usual room that I work with lasers in. It's about 15m long - quite nicely sized. I fired up the fan on the top of the laser and then turned it on (at idle). It flickered for about a minute then finally came on. While I waited for it to warm up so that I could turn the current up, I got out the prisms that I had gotten from Jack at Optotronics. I snapped this picture at idle:
Several minutes later, I began slowly turning the current up. I finally got the laser up to full power and noticed something strange across the room. I walked over and took another picture.
I was mystified. It is certainly the cleanest TEM01 that I have ever seen. But what could be causing this? I've been quite religious about always running the fan when the laser is running, sucking air out the top of the head. I noticed that when I turned the laser back down to idle current, it hopped back into TEM00 on all lines, but, as I turned the current up, the mode on the blue lines shifted into TEM01. Alignment issues and temperature came to mind. It lases quite nicely at what appears to be rated power (I haven't actually measured it, though I will tonight), so I'm not sure it's alignment. Could the fan not be moving enough air to keep the tube happy? What else could be at play here?
Am I doing something glaringly wrong? :undecided:
-Trevor