He-Ne Tube from egay?

[kingdave2357]

Ive been getting interested in gas lasers lately and want to get a He-Ne to add to my collection. I dont know too much about them, but have been reading up here and there, but not much more knowledge than whats on wiki. Anyway ive been searching ebay for a cheap little he-ne like TJ found, and found this:HELIUM NEON LASER TUBE for CLASSROOM LAB HeNe GAS TUBE - eBay (item 180502566273 end time May-09-10 21:56:49 PDT)
Its only the tube, no PSU included, but im sure I could get one somewhere. What worries me is that #1 it is so cheap, though it looks like the seller doesnt know too much about it. And #2 the seller has 0 feedback. These two factors give of a scam odor to me, but wanted others opinions, heck for $5 bucks Im thinkin of just going for it, unless the price gets too high.

 

[aryntha]

Well, he says 7-day money back and no "AS IS", he shows it working (unless he ripped the pic) - so he's doing none of the "thou shalt not's" as far as ebay selling goes. Either it'll work or it won't; and i'm betting it'll work. If you use paypal it'll likely be covered, too, because of how he describes it.

I'd say go for it but, i've seen them getting up to $20 lately. But with 0 feedback honestly maybe it'll stay this low.

Don't listen much to his "It'll run 3-4mW if..." claim though... You can't overclock your monitor, and you can't overdrive a HeNe.

That said, everyone needs some gas. And even 1-2mW of 632.8 is brighter than you might think.

 

[kingdave2357]

It still has 4 days left, I'll keep an eye on it, if it stays low its mine! Though I was looking to get one with the power supply included, but at the current price I cant complain. Thanks for the advice

 

[kingdave2357]

Ah hell, someones got that stupid proxy bid on it, I hate that feature. Anyway I have it up to $10.50 now. IDK even if I dont go for it, im still gonna make the winner pay for it:eg:

 

[Greenmechanic]

Don't bid again until a minute before the auction ends. All you do by bidding early, is drive the price up.
I wait until 5 seconds before the end, and than bid.
Don't try to cut it this close, unless you have a 30MB per second or faster connection.
BTW: If you don't win this one, PM Dave, he can set you up with a turn-key system for around $40?? (don't quote me on that price but it will be a he!! of a deal)
It will be tested, shipped and sitting on your doorstep in +/- 3 days.

 

[Cyparagon]

Don't try to cut it this close, unless you have a 30MB per second or faster connection.

Because a bid request requires the transfer of many gigabytes. The ping of 67,395ms you're getting is irrelevant.

 

[kingdave2357]

I ended up paying more than I wanted to for it, but oh well. It says it should run at 900-1250V, any ideas if this is accurate, and does anyone have one of these, brick style they could sell me?