First or oldest laser pic

[COMMANDR]

Post the first or oldest laser you own.

This is my very first and oldest laser, I built it when I was in high school. The year ..... 1969.
The laser tube is all that is left of the laser, the power supply is long gone. The skeleton tube is just how it came in the mail. It is a whopping .5mw He Ne form Metrologic.

More info
Photos of Metrologic HeNe Lasers

 

[IsaacT]

I don't have many lasers left. The first laser I ever built though. Anyone who is familiar with the ground screw joke probably remembers that build thread, as it is what started it all lol. I was under the impression I had to connect the third prong of the switch to a "ground" and the radioshack employee suggested a screw....so I did.

Cheers,
Isaac

 

[Shakenawake]

Got this and ended up playing with it more than I shot with it (did not play with it while still attached)

I still have it, divergence is superb, possibly the best of my lasers. It really helped my accuracy too. It's amazing how far away the dot of this laser remains clearly visible, it can't be much over 5mW, I suspect it's very near 5mW. (beamshot was exposure) anyway, this is partially responsible for getting me into lasers

 

[Laser Chick]

My very first laser, what a road it has LED me down
<5mW 650mW uses 2 AAAA batteries. Still works flawlessly to this day.
I believe it was from Edmund Scientific.

 

[Gabe]

I lost all my old photos, but it was of my very first laser. It's similar to Laser Chick's, a <5mW 650 presentation pointer, from Staples. My parents bought it for me when I was around 8-ish, after I was fascinated by the pointer my dad brought home from one of his business trips. Button's a lil sticky, but it still works fine.

 

[Laser Chick]

^^ Nice!!

 

[RedCowboy]

I saw my brother in law this Christmas and he gave me back an old build that I had given him years ago, it still works he just never uses it with all the nice greens and blues he has to enjoy these days, but at the time a 100mw 650nm was what there was, I remember drilling all the holes straight through and threading them, 8 for the back plate that the battery holder attaches to and four on the top plate for battery access, 1/4 aluminum sheet, this is one red that will never overheat lol, anyway it's an old memory from years gone by.

 

[Deleted member 46822]

That is one heavy duty build and you ain't kidding about not worrying about the duty cycle It kinda reminds me of how American cars and appliances in general were built in the 50's and 60's
Others seemed to be doing Altoids can builds...

 

[Skittles]

That is so cool! :O

 

[RedCowboy]

There was an electronics salvage places in a big warehouse years ago that sold stuff by the pound, I picked up 50 pounds of aluminum plate and had used a bit of it for older builds, here's another old aluminum brick, I made a lot like this years ago, some were pretty cool, others were pretty plain, but you could stand on them without hurting anything.

 

[Deleted member 46822]

What's in this other beefie build Red? It looks like a 520 or least the pic make it look it..
520's were up there in prices then..How strong?

 

[RedCowboy]

No, it was a 532, maybe it's the lens flare causing it to look that way ?

As for output I bought modules that claimed to be 50, 100 and 200 MW but who knows what they really were, my guess is between 25-50, 50-100 and 100-200, but I do remember paying 100 dollars for a claimed 200mw 532.

I am today impressed with 520 directs, my Osram 515 focuses to a tighter spot on a white cinder block wall 100 yards away than any of my factory 532's, I do have some 532's with beam expanders that get pretty tight but that 515 is actually really tight for a beam with one axis wider than the other leaving the lens.

The one in the pic was from 2010 and should be TEM00 because it's a 532nm DPSS.