Hi LPF!
Guess what showed up? That's right, my new Argon laser! Thanks again to Sta for the excellent eBay suggestion. :thanks: It actually arrived two days ago, but I had family in town so I had to wait until today to do a proper run.
I picked up this laser with a matching 2102-25ML power supply from an eBay auction for around $290 shipped. According to the nameplate, it was manufactured July 1989. I don't know how many hours are on the tube.
When it first showed up, I grabbed a ~150CFM PC fan that I had lying around (thanks to UltimateKaiser for the info about how to set up cooling) and gaffer taped it on. I ran it for about 20 minutes (I know, too short, but I had to run pretty soon after I powered it on) and oohed and ahhed at the pretty blue beam. I mean, sure I have a 1W handheld 445nm and a 500mW 405nm, both of which require no cooling or massive power supplies, but there's something about obsolete laser tech that makes it way cooler. After all, if I drop this laser, I might get cancer (BeO)!
Anyway, I seem to get 5 lines at both idle and full power. Idle consumes about 6.4A at the wall (Kill-A-Watt) and full power consumes ~9A. I don't have a remote control, so my power supply is currently jumpered for light mode. Sam's Laser FAQ comes with a great page on this laser and its power supply, which I intend to use to build a remote interface (or at least throw some meters in there). I don't have a LPM, so I can't tell you what optical power it is putting out, but the eBay seller metered around 40mW at full power.
As usual, I took a good number of pictures. Unfortunately, I haven't really been able to capture the beam or spot in a way that looks at all reasonable. However, it's still an interesting album IMHO. There are some extra details in the image descriptions.
https://imgur.com/a/bRwW9
Thanks for reading!
Guess what showed up? That's right, my new Argon laser! Thanks again to Sta for the excellent eBay suggestion. :thanks: It actually arrived two days ago, but I had family in town so I had to wait until today to do a proper run.
I picked up this laser with a matching 2102-25ML power supply from an eBay auction for around $290 shipped. According to the nameplate, it was manufactured July 1989. I don't know how many hours are on the tube.
When it first showed up, I grabbed a ~150CFM PC fan that I had lying around (thanks to UltimateKaiser for the info about how to set up cooling) and gaffer taped it on. I ran it for about 20 minutes (I know, too short, but I had to run pretty soon after I powered it on) and oohed and ahhed at the pretty blue beam. I mean, sure I have a 1W handheld 445nm and a 500mW 405nm, both of which require no cooling or massive power supplies, but there's something about obsolete laser tech that makes it way cooler. After all, if I drop this laser, I might get cancer (BeO)!
Anyway, I seem to get 5 lines at both idle and full power. Idle consumes about 6.4A at the wall (Kill-A-Watt) and full power consumes ~9A. I don't have a remote control, so my power supply is currently jumpered for light mode. Sam's Laser FAQ comes with a great page on this laser and its power supply, which I intend to use to build a remote interface (or at least throw some meters in there). I don't have a LPM, so I can't tell you what optical power it is putting out, but the eBay seller metered around 40mW at full power.
As usual, I took a good number of pictures. Unfortunately, I haven't really been able to capture the beam or spot in a way that looks at all reasonable. However, it's still an interesting album IMHO. There are some extra details in the image descriptions.
https://imgur.com/a/bRwW9
Thanks for reading!