Laserbuilder's collection of gas and other lasers

[paul1598419]

I'm still amazed at your ability to get these gas and solid state lasers so easily and cheaply. That CO2 laser looks huge when compared to the new ones today rated at the same power. Is that a fact, or is it just the way the photo shows it?

 

[Laserbuilder]

Is that a fact, or is it just the way the photo shows it?

Yes it is. It is really long, at least 1.2-1.3 meter. Modern chinese 40W tubes are 70 cm long.

 

[Laserbuilder]

23)

Casual russian dye circulator. This is an appliance for pumping dye through the cuvettes of lamp pumped dye lasers and it went with all models of russian lamp pumped dye lasers. Inside it has a variable valtage power supply and a small pump with a DC motor, so the pumping speed can be varied. The dye is stored in a fused quartz reservoir. For cooling the dye solution a quartz spiral is welded inside and water can flow through it. When I got this unit the reservoir was heavily contaminated with the remains of R6G dye and some yucky shit. Only a solution of potassium dichromate in nitric acid was able to clean it out, it is quite disgusting too))) On the last two photos is the original dirty state of the reservoir.

I am going to use it with my LOS4M dye laser.

 

[diachi]

23)

Casual russian dye circulator. This is an appliance for pumping dye through the cuvettes of lamp pumped dye lasers and it went with all models of russian lamp pumped dye lasers. Inside it has a variable valtage power supply and a small pump with a DC motor, so the pumping speed can be varied. The dye is stored in a fused quartz reservoir. For cooling the dye solution a quartz spiral is welded inside and water can flow through it. When I got this unit the reservoir was heavily contaminated with the remains of R6G dye and some yucky shit. Only a solution of potassium dichromate in nitric acid was able to clean it out, it is quite disgusting too))) On the last two photos is the original dirty state of the reservoir.

I am going to use it with my LOS4M dye laser.

If you give that thing a real good clean you could use it to distill alcohol!

Very cool though, thanks again for sharing.

 

[paul1598419]

It looks like it had a rough life, so far, Laserbuilder. Diachi, there are glass distillation heads much cheaper and more effective than this coil. Will be looking forward to some beam shots when this is incorporated into the dye laser.

 

[diachi]

It looks like it had a rough life, so far, Laserbuilder. Diachi, there are glass distillation heads much cheaper and more effective than this coil. Will be looking forward to some beam shots when this is incorporated into the dye laser.

Yeah, I've used those, just having some fun! Could always go the modified pressure cooker and copper pipe route too...

Agreed though, would be nice to see some dye around here, they can produce some real nice colours.

 

[paul1598419]

:crackup: you are just an Appalachian moonshiner, Diachi!

 

[Laserbuilder]

24)

LGN-503 large-frame argon laser.

My new, very recent find))) I got it on monday this week for only 40$ from a lab that was scrapping its equipment. This is one of the most widespread unit among russian argon lasers, it has a water cooled glass tube with the BeO ceramic bore. The tube is inserted in an electric magnet for arc compression. Resonator mirrors are hardly attached to the tube through metal bellows, one of them is actually a prism that is used for wavelength selection. Rated power of this laser is 1W for 488 nm wavelength and it is not specified for other lines. The wavelength can be switched with a knob on the back of the laser. For the 1 W of output it will take 9 kW of input power, the tube current is 30A with the voltage drop 300-320V. The hot cathode starting current from the cold state is nearly 100A! Filament voltage is 4V, with the current of about 25A. The filament transformer lives in a small separate box away from the main power supply.

This ion laser is a true incarnation of the "F@@k the electricity economy" principle! Horribly inefficient!

 

[diachi]

24)

LGN-503 large-frame argon laser.

My new, very recent find))) I got it on monday this week for only 40$ from a lab that was scrapping its equipment. This is one of the most widespread unit among russian argon lasers, it has a water cooled glass tube with the BeO ceramic bore. The tube is inserted in an electric magnet for arc compression. Resonator mirrors are hardly attached to the tube through metal bellows, one of them is actually a prism that is used for wavelength selection. Rated power of this laser is 1W for 488 nm wavelength and it is not specified for other lines. The wavelength can be switched with a knob on the back of the laser. For the 1 W of output it will take 9 kW of input power, the tube current is 30A with the voltage drop 300-320V. The hot cathode starting current from the cold state is nearly 100A! Filament voltage is 4V, with the curent of about 25A. The filament transformer lives in a small separate box away from the main power supply.

This ion laser is a true incarnation of the "F@@k the electricity economy" principle! Horribly inefficient!

Some nice glass work there! Looks like it could use a good clean/flush though . Similar tube design to the SP168 and such, which is my favourite design for Argon (and Krypton), that glass cathode bell looks nice when it's running!

Definitely good for the power company, and the water company if you don't go closed loop for cooling.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[icecruncher]

Just ran across this thread.

WOW!!!

Awesome collection of lasers.

Seems like they need a lot of maintenance though
Don't think I could keep up with that many.

thanks for sharing.

 

[Laserbuilder]

25)

My new find -- a bunch of Nd:Glass rods. The biggest one, 45*620 mm, is a spare for GOS1001 laser blaster, the second is 30*620 from an unknown laser and it has a fatal damage -- a big shard of it is chipped. The third is 20*270 mm and all other small ones are from laser welders.

 

[paul1598419]

I'll bet you got them all for next to nothing, too. That one is really damaged badly. Someone was very careless with it. That's a shame. Do you have any plans for these? Are you starting a new build? :yh:

 

[Laserbuilder]

Are you starting a new build?

I cannot decide what to do first. I have 2 argons which I need to get running, the GOS1001 unit and the LOS4M dye laser. Argons look like to be the easiest ones in this list, but still I can't decide. Probably, at first I need to take away the CVL power unit and other stuff from my table to have place)))))

 

[paul1598419]

I know what you mean. I have too many irons in the fire right now.

 

[Laserbuilder]

26)

3-phase switch-mode power unit for a big argon ion laser. It can run a laser with the optical power of up to 5W while drawing 20 kVA from the wall plug. I've pulled it from a very old retina photocoagulator and will use it with the LGN503 laser head.

It needed repairs and I successfully made it working, in an idle mode it gives out 600V. Inside it has a quite br00tal circuitry including heavy water cooled induction coils, thyristors and diodes on water cooled heatsinks, etc. The upper block contains light control circuitry and oscillators for switching the thyristors, in the water cooled stainless steel box there is an LC filter and filament transformer for the cathode. In the lower block is the power section which consists of a three phase bridge rectifier and a pulse-width modulator for arc current stabilisation that is built with the use of 6 thyristors, some capacitors and chokes, that are hidden in a water cooled cylindrical object with a winding on it.

Now i need to repair the laser head, because air leaked into the laser tube. This will be a tricky task for the glassblower...

 

[Laserbuilder]

27)

The laser tube that I've been hunting on for several years -- really big CVL tube! It is also sealed-off self-heating tube with the output of up to 30W on both lines, it is called GL-201. It needs at least 4 kW of input power, so it will be quite tricky to run it. The tube is 1.3 meter long and 135mm in diameter. And yes, I got it nearly for nothing, I exchanged a dead krypton laser on it.