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FrozenGate by Avery

Bens new argon laser

Hi Ben,
Nice photos. I love the inside of these lasers. I can sit and look inside one of these for ages in amazement how sweetly it's been put together. I still have one left for sale.
Have fun mate.
Cheers,
Rob.
 





Basic stamp scanner coming!

I found all the bits in my shack to make up a scanner that a couple of guys were working on in one of the laser forums. Its based on two supermarket scanner galvo thingies, some digital potentiometers and a basic stamp 2 chip. I bought these ages ago but never got around to building it. Instead I took my ham radio hobby to the hilt and bought a $2000 radio :P

Now I have a nice argon, its time to go get the final parts (a right angle aluminium piece, and a few resistors and transistors) and build it up.

Am charging up a 7,2volt nimh to test fire the bs2 and see if i can get it to accept code. I will check the outputs on my scope to see if they are doing the right thing, then build the galvo / digipot bit tomorrow.

Should look pretty cool running in front of the argon, even if its not one of those scanpro 30k scanner sets hooked to a lappy. It'll do for NYE!
 
Ahhh so that's what that laser was on PL!! Wondered where it had came from.

Looks nice, very compact and tidy. Addicted yet? :D
 
yep - I'm dash8brj on PL - coz I checked to see if it was valid and it was, 0 posts and couldn't be bothered signing up under my callsign. :)
 
This must be one of the smallest Ar Ion laser i even seen and definately the first i´ve ever seen that have the psu built in.

Im looking forward to getting my SP-092-S Ar plasma tube, will be a great deal of fun building the psu to it.
Got it from timelab scientific on ebay.
 
ok since my basic stamp is stuffed, i adapted the code to work with a pic 16F84 I had laying around. Kinda meant I had to build a programmer. Taking a break from soldering now, then will move onto the construction of the actual scanner thingie, which is just a matter of wiring the pic to the digipots, and adding a 4mhz crystal for the pic (wonder if a 3.58 mhz one will do?!)

Need to visit jaycar and get some transistors and 470 ohm resistors.

God I hope this thing works!

Looks like I cant attach files here; so I will link to the hex file later. I'll also provide a schematic for the scanner.

This just basicaly draws two different style of boxes, and a few different styles of liquid sky. I found it on another forum, where a guy was using a basic stamp, and adapted it to work with a pic, which is much cheaper than a stamp!

edit: Another beam shot, full power, taken with my mates point and shoot. 8mpix resized and thats your's truly behind the laser operating. Yes I am not wearing goggles, he is, as he was nearer to the beam path than I was:
2lnen1x.jpg


The only particles in the air is from our ciggies (we both smoke, but werent at the time the photo was taken). And first pic taken when out of the sling thingie I had on in first photo on this thread. I still wear it when moving about. Unintentional movements on the arm still smart (i.e. I have set the travel limit pots to where the pain starts) ;-)
 
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Experimentonomen said:
Im looking forward to getting my SP-092-S Ar plasma tube, will be a great deal of fun building the psu to it.
Got it from timelab scientific on ebay.
Click to expand...

Timelab scientific is timelablasers here on the forum so if you want to ask any questions about your SP laser, just send him a pm.

What type of supply do you intend to build? Start with a brute force and add a regulator later?
 
Im starting soft, using a big 1.5kVA transformer and a big heatsink with a buncha mosfets for the linear passbank to regulate the current, the current regulator circuit will be kindof home grown, i will not know if it´ll work until the laser arrives as i have no suitable dummyloads to test it with.

I´ll start a thread about it when the laser arrives.
 
Hi Experimentonomen,
I sent off your tube today. As I mentioned to you through ebay, I know the tube works but have no idea of the power output because it has been sitting on a shelf for quite some time. If I remember correctly, the tube is new, or near new at least.
Argon tubes do suffer from this 'high pressure' business if not used for some time so you may have to kick it in the guts a bit with your power supply to bring it back to a healthy state. There are other ways, I have heard, but maybe that's a question for the forum. I heard that taking to them with a Tesla coil helps with rejuvenating them.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll have heaps of fun with it.
Cheers,
Rob.
 
single colour or are you going to mix in some red for whitelight?
 
Well. Now I have scruffed my mates camera that can shoot video , Its time I fired up the laserphysics for you lot and show you all how it works. Then I will strip the laser down to basic components and then put it all together again.

Now I do apologise for the quality of these videos, but its coming from a sony point and shoot camera that can do video.

Step by step firing the laser, attempting (unsucessfully) to light a match, and shutting it down. Shot with a Nokia N95 phone, which has surprisingly good video quality (eats my shitty iphone for lunch! I knew I kept this thing for a reason!)


Still trying to light that darn match. I shoulda got the probes out, taken the shell off the interlock plug and shorted those pins. See below for why (another post)... Here you get to see a beam in darkness!


Removing top and end plates.

The front end plate is easier to remove from the laser but just be careful not to tweak the OC. My screwdriver snapped while trying to remove the plate. I will update once I get some quality (non hobby shop) screwdrivers!

Place holder: removing the tube

Place holder: removing the main PCB

Hope you lot enjoy. :)

edit: they will be late - sat up till early morning chatting to experimtonomen on irc :P

edit2: Ok the rest of the videos will go up in 2 weeks. On the 21st/jan I am buying a Canon 500D with a 50mm 1.8 and a fish eye lens to satisfy my photography craving. I already have an 18-55 on my 300D (which is buggered) so I will use that to shoot the rest of the videos. Yes the 500D shoots video... High Definition video! :)
 
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I am now working on the remote. The first part (the bling) has arrived, a sexy blue panel meter!

ab7aeq.jpg


I have pinouts for current and milliwatts, along with the light control pot. I'll work out the current control pot and mode switch along with run/idle switch later :)

the thing in the yellow electric tape is a 5v isolated DC supply. It wont be in the final project, I just used it to test the meter on a 12 volt SLA battery.
 
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That screen looks great, I've been looking everywhere for one to stick on my controller so that I can have a read out for the current without having to plug in my DMM.

Mind telling me where you got it from? Cheers! :)
 
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