LaserPhysics Reliant 300WC help

[paul1598419]

Nice. I'm sure you will get the fan working. Thanks for sharing the photos.

 

[VirtueViolater]

Well done!!
Man that things awesome! Is it the camera making the beam appear to diverge?
Great to see it working,

 

[diachi]

Man that things awesome! Is it the camera making the beam appear to diverge?

Yeah, perspective, any beam shot will appear like that from that sort of angle/position. Beam diameter and divergence should be rather small out of this - probably ~1mm at aperture and ~1mRad.

 

[FRITZ HID]

TNx guys, and it's pleasure sharing these fine works of art with the rest of you!
hopefully i'll get this fan issue dealt with quickly and then i can start my monthly maintenance burns! :wave:
i'd really like something quieter and vented outdoors.... i have enough heat here in FL as it is, don't really need a 2kW space heater running in my livingroom for hours on end, lol.
then i just gotta decide what i'm going to do with it.... :thinking: don't REALLY have a "use" for it... but it was only $30 and it's cool as hell! guess i'll just find some FS mirrors, some motors and if i can find a cheap one... a diffraction grating (Noooo CDs!).

 

[diachi]

don't REALLY have a "use" for it... but it was only $30 and it's cool as hell!.

I'll take it off of you for $40 + shipping.

I'm broke as hell and still entirely serious.

 

[FRITZ HID]

I'll take it off of you for $40 + shipping.

I'm broke as hell and still entirely serious.

lol, well now that it's status is KNOWN working.... IDK if i could let it go for quite that cheap.... but i'll keep it in mind

 

[diachi]

lol, well now that it's status is KNOWN working.... IDK if i could let it go for quite that cheap.... but i'll keep it in mind

Haha, it was worth a shot :wave:. If I had more to offer I would - always wanted an Ar/Kr of my own.

 

[FRITZ HID]

Haha, it was worth a shot :wave:. If I had more to offer I would - always wanted an Ar/Kr of my own.

no, sleeping with your bartender is worth a shot! lol:beer:

 

[DJZ]

Nice job, Fritz! Stick a diffraction grating in front of the beam (or a cdrom), I'd bet that you'll find a nice yellow line!

 

[FRITZ HID]

Nice job, Fritz! Stick a diffraction grating in front of the beam (or a cdrom), I'd bet that you'll find a nice yellow line!

Unfortunately not at the moment.... the pressure is a little high so some of the lines are very weak... tons of AR lines but the KR lines are low. i'm only getting about 7-8 lines ATM but as soon as i can give her a good 1-2Hr run i'm sure she'll get her other lines in check....
now.... i need to figure out what her name is gonna be :eg:

 

[FRITZ HID]

Hmmmm....



When I first fired it up I was getting at least 8 lines... Now.... Not so many. :-(
I'm hoping a nice long burn will even things out again

 

[ultimatekaiser]

Check your voltage and current. back your current down to mid-range and see what happens. Kr is expelled faster than the Ar is and circulates more poorly, my 643 has a gas ballast to avoid that. Your voltage will be a direct function of tube pressure. if your current is too high or not regulated well, you'll get problems in your discharge. if your gas return is obstructed internally from age, it can also cause the gas to circulate poorly if there are debris in the tube. It's also possible your alignment is off. if it was behaving before and hasn't been sitting long, I'd wager the problem is more likely electrical. but is it possible that you knocked the tube and moved a mirror minutely? it doesn't take much. be careful not to hurt yourself. I find it odd that you don't have the 568nm line coming in.

 

[FRITZ HID]

Check your voltage and current. back your current down to mid-range and see what happens. Kr is expelled faster than the Ar is and circulates more poorly, my 643 has a gas ballast to avoid that. Your voltage will be a direct function of tube pressure. if your current is too high or not regulated well, you'll get problems in your discharge. if your gas return is obstructed internally from age, it can also cause the gas to circulate poorly if there are debris in the tube. It's also possible your alignment is off. if it was behaving before and hasn't been sitting long, I'd wager the problem is more likely electrical. but is it possible that you knocked the tube and moved a mirror minutely? it doesn't take much. be careful not to hurt yourself. I find it odd that you don't have the 568nm line coming in.

this has a gas ballast as well.
i was very careful not to nudge the mirror/brewster stem mounts while repairing but i guess anything's possible.
PITA factor while testing is the fact that both the fan and its power supply are mounted to the housing cover so running it w/o the cover is a bitch, but i'm sure i'll figure out a way... i always do. lol
right now, there's about 5-6 lines showing. 2 reds, 2 blues and 1-2 green. no yellow tho.

 

[ultimatekaiser]

yeah your tube voltage will be a strong function of pressure, but if your power or spread is improving with run time, then that's certainly an option, but very slow. alignment is a tricky job, but would explain the sudden reduction. my laser doesn't do the greens by default, as they were omitted due to their high gain, so they steal from the other lines. 568 has higher gain than 647, but they share the same upper state, so pressure determines which lines come in. lower pressures will yield more 568 yellow-green, while higher pressures favor 647 red. If it hasn't been out of comission for a while, pressure is not likely a huge player, but it could be. but if you do mess with the mirrors, be very careful not to mess them up. I think these are sealed mirror tubes IIRC? if so best to probably leave them alone. getting lasing back on these short narrow bore ion lasers often involves a generous selection of four letter words....

 

[FRITZ HID]

yeah your tube voltage will be a strong function of pressure, but if your power or spread is improving with run time, then that's certainly an option, but very slow. alignment is a tricky job, but would explain the sudden reduction. my laser doesn't do the greens by default, as they were omitted due to their high gain, so they steal from the other lines. 568 has higher gain than 647, but they share the same upper state, so pressure determines which lines come in. lower pressures will yield more 568 yellow-green, while higher pressures favor 647 red. If it hasn't been out of comission for a while, pressure is not likely a huge player, but it could be. but if you do mess with the mirrors, be very careful not to mess them up. I think these are sealed mirror tubes IIRC? if so best to probably leave them alone. getting lasing back on these short narrow bore ion lasers often involves a generous selection of four letter words....

well luckily, i have a large vocabulary of 4 letter words at my access! lol
when i 1st fired it up, reds were the lower power and green yellow and blue were strong, but now reds are far brighter than they were and the yellow is gone and one green is very dim compared to the other.
how long of a recovery burn is typical for these?

i'm not 100% but i think these are external mirror lasers. i'll take a pic a lil later of the HR/OC ends of the tube.

 

[diachi]

yIf it hasn't been out of comission for a while, pressure is not likely a huge player, but it could be. but if you do mess with the mirrors, be very careful not to mess them up. I think these are sealed mirror tubes IIRC? if so best to probably leave them alone. getting lasing back on these short narrow bore ion lasers often involves a generous selection of four letter words....

You're correct - sealed mirrors on these, not so fun to attempt to align (Note that I said attempt). Not that external mirrors are fun to align either, just not as bad.

Edit:

The factory uses a jig with 3 screws at 120' apart that looks like a modified shaft collar.. Plus some other tooling. Alignment is by slight crushing of the tube, and does not drift much... Its not something you want to do without practicing on say a cyonics/uniphase/jdsu.

You could call DZ Laser, not "our" PL DZ, and see how much they would want to refill it or tweek it. If you have a graph of tube voltage VS current they could probably tell you where you are on the life cycle..

The DZ that was referred to: http://www.dzlaser.com/