- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 2,918
- Points
- 113
I've been sitting on this for quite a while so I think it's time to finally be out with it. After a long time of searching for a HeCd that was working and was able to produce UV, I eventually found much to my suprise a standard series 56 that did one but had 800+ hours on it. having known that this is probably about a fifth of its life I surfed the lab and a few other places and found that the same lab had a new head sitting in stock as well as a replacement that they were also getting rid of, for alot more money and no power supply listed. I inquired as to whether they would sell it with the PS and they said that they wouldn't as they wanted it to go out with the used head. cool. I book mark it and save it for later. about a week later after talking with sam about getting one of his new ones (blue only) the lab randomly messages me and says if i'm still interested they'll sell it to me for half price (though still a huge chunk of money, but well worth it) so I happily oblige. the main factor being that it has the original box, and thus has a chance of actually surviving shipping. HeCds are notoriously fragile, so after a short wait of gritting my teeth it comes, and appears intact with no issues. Naturally I'm ecstatic over this!
Problem is, now I need a power supply, and worse, I'm very limited, as most don't come with an umbilical for the laser. I'm stuck with just the head. After searching around, I find out that MI has an umbilical, but it's for the newer LC-500 power supply, and not the older Omni-100A. I buy it, and after much toil and searching and going through several broken power supplies, I finally find one that works. Let me tell you, the power supplies aren't much better! they're overly complex, switch mode, microprocessor controlled supplies, so a billion things can go wrong to make them un-fixable without new parts. But with my great pleasure, I can announce I now have a HeCd and have completed my collection of all the major types of gas lasers that are readily available...and minus a working 3.39um HeNe, I now have pretty much every wavelength that you can readily get your hands on!
Let me tell you that playing with the UV line is quite an amazingly fun thing to do! I actually have a pad of paper that must have a florescence material in it as it not only floresces blue, but it leaves a momentary light blue trail when you move it around it also pumps my uranium marble and socks quite nicely
Power output is multimode and rated 5.6/25mW for 325/442 respectively.
but we all know what you really came for......PICS!
New in the original box and everything, still in the damn plastic!
Out of the box. you can see the MG checklist on the top showing who checked it and the procedure used to check it out before shipping.
Front Panel with 0.0 hour count:
Looking through the air intake:
back-panel:
Inside (cathode and output on left, anode end on the right) you can see the helium reservoir on top:
LC-500 PSU (though a bit worse for the wear):
Tube lit (intake):
Beamshot! though it shows up violet on camera, but it's really a deep blue-violet (442nm):
UV 325nm flourescing my sock!
Uranium Marble under 442nm:
Uranium Marble under 325nm:
Problem is, now I need a power supply, and worse, I'm very limited, as most don't come with an umbilical for the laser. I'm stuck with just the head. After searching around, I find out that MI has an umbilical, but it's for the newer LC-500 power supply, and not the older Omni-100A. I buy it, and after much toil and searching and going through several broken power supplies, I finally find one that works. Let me tell you, the power supplies aren't much better! they're overly complex, switch mode, microprocessor controlled supplies, so a billion things can go wrong to make them un-fixable without new parts. But with my great pleasure, I can announce I now have a HeCd and have completed my collection of all the major types of gas lasers that are readily available...and minus a working 3.39um HeNe, I now have pretty much every wavelength that you can readily get your hands on!
Let me tell you that playing with the UV line is quite an amazingly fun thing to do! I actually have a pad of paper that must have a florescence material in it as it not only floresces blue, but it leaves a momentary light blue trail when you move it around it also pumps my uranium marble and socks quite nicely
Power output is multimode and rated 5.6/25mW for 325/442 respectively.
but we all know what you really came for......PICS!
New in the original box and everything, still in the damn plastic!
Out of the box. you can see the MG checklist on the top showing who checked it and the procedure used to check it out before shipping.
Front Panel with 0.0 hour count:
Looking through the air intake:
back-panel:
Inside (cathode and output on left, anode end on the right) you can see the helium reservoir on top:
LC-500 PSU (though a bit worse for the wear):
Tube lit (intake):
Beamshot! though it shows up violet on camera, but it's really a deep blue-violet (442nm):
UV 325nm flourescing my sock!
Uranium Marble under 442nm:
Uranium Marble under 325nm:
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