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FrozenGate by Avery

Does anyone know where to find a cheap 473nm?






ebay. there where hundreds about a year back. all gone now and people resell for insane prices.
 
I had one. Worst beam specs of any laser I have owned including M140's. Mine was one of the BW-tek's out of the Raman Spectroscopy assemblies. In the end I decided it was worth more as a chassis for a future corrected diode build. I'm pretty sure the one I had was EOL. The beam hardly resembled TEM anything even with an external lens to actually bring it to a beam (these were fiber coupled into a fatty fiber). The splash was so awful and had more power in it than the main dot. The spot itself was extremely messy to the point I'm wondering if one of the conversion crystals had damaged coatings or other damage.


IIRC, there were less than 40 of the units I got one of available, and only about 20 by the time I got mine and the rest of the forum got news of them. Most that bought them got them for the spectro with the 473nm unit as a minor bonus.


If one really wants one, don't pay over $50 for one shipped, and even then I'd only consider it if you just "have to have 473nm". The only way I'd consider more were if it were metered over a few minutes and with clear images showing a fairly clean spot. Anything more than $50 for a typical unit and you may as well spend more and either go 488, or a NUBM07E (rated 465nm) to get pretty close on the other side if within spec sheet drive current, potentially higher than 473nm if overdriven. Either of those options are better than paying out the nose for an almost dead 473nm unit from a leech. 473nm is still very much "pay to play" territory if you want something decent. It is also getting phased out as diodes have pretty much replaced it at this point.

You MAY be able to get really really lucky and find someone that still has (and is willing to part with) one of the diodes from the batch my 477nm is from. I must warn though, there were very few and I doubt any will hand one over easily if at all as there were never many to begin with and there was a ton of demand for what was supposed to be a diode with more supply like the 495's that came and went.
 
I had one. Worst beam specs of any laser I have owned including M140's. Mine was one of the BW-tek's out of the Raman Spectroscopy assemblies. In the end I decided it was worth more as a chassis for a future corrected diode build. I'm pretty sure the one I had was EOL. The beam hardly resembled TEM anything even with an external lens to actually bring it to a beam (these were fiber coupled into a fatty fiber). The splash was so awful and had more power in it than the main dot. The spot itself was extremely messy to the point I'm wondering if one of the conversion crystals had damaged coatings or other damage.


IIRC, there were less than 40 of the units I got one of available, and only about 20 by the time I got mine and the rest of the forum got news of them. Most that bought them got them for the spectro with the 473nm unit as a minor bonus.


If one really wants one, don't pay over $50 for one shipped, and even then I'd only consider it if you just "have to have 473nm". The only way I'd consider more were if it were metered over a few minutes and with clear images showing a fairly clean spot. Anything more than $50 for a typical unit and you may as well spend more and either go 488, or a NUBM07E (rated 465nm) to get pretty close on the other side if within spec sheet drive current, potentially higher than 473nm if overdriven. Either of those options are better than paying out the nose for an almost dead 473nm unit from a leech. 473nm is still very much "pay to play" territory if you want something decent. It is also getting phased out as diodes have pretty much replaced it at this point.

You MAY be able to get really really lucky and find someone that still has (and is willing to part with) one of the diodes from the batch my 477nm is from. I must warn though, there were very few and I doubt any will hand one over easily if at all as there were never many to begin with and there was a ton of demand for what was supposed to be a diode with more supply like the 495's that came and went.
I got one of those spectrometer 473nm modules and it had a perfect tem 00
 
Yours is probably one of the few. Any time I see mention of them, the beam specs are garbage unless someone got half a dozen or got really lucky.

Hence "If one really wants one, don't pay over $50 for one shipped, and even then I'd only consider it if you just "have to have 473nm". The only way I'd consider more were if it were metered over a few minutes and with clear images showing a fairly clean spot."
 





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