New toy! Uniphase 1145P

[ultimatekaiser]

Recently found a few sources for these, and decided to talk to the sellers. found one that was willing to give this one away at 175 bucks! It like most heads is potted lightly into the aluminum cylinder and feels quite rigid. and weighs right about 2 pounds I believe. It came to me in its own original box from the factory, and secured quite nicely.

These are the flagship of the current uniphase lasers (at least the normal ones that are listed as regular products) doing about 21 mW. I actually have the official power supply that this tube would normally come with, so I used it for all of this. It states 3800VDC @ 6.5mA...lets take a look shall we?

This beast is almost as big as the main part of my desk! you can see it has mounting rings affixed to it as well. the shutter is a bit nicer than the Melles Griot ones, rather than being a friction switch, its a smoothly opening and closing tab.

the front end:

It has a 632.8 pass filter on the front to help clear out the incoherent light from the tube:

When I first fired it up, I was only getting about 16mW, so I proceeded to let the laser warm up to nominal for a while, before it peaked at about 20mW. after which I change the orientation and mounting methods, until I got it to about 22mW. Nice! pretty good for a polarized coaxial tube, rather than an external mirror tube. It liked to hover around 20mW but it has slowly come up as the day goes on, so I'm under the impression it hasn't been run in a while, and that it is possibly a bit tired, but not terribly so.

It's pretty bright! but still nowhere near my spectra physics 127! divergence is quoted at 1.15mRad and a beam diameter of about .7mm

A shot through my passionfruit tea:

Size comparison with some more typical lasers, and my SP-127...:
Top to bottom:
SP-127 (rated 35mW @ 632.8nm, does almost 50mW) [39.5" cavity only]
Uniphase 1145P (rated and does about 22mW @ 632.8nm)[27.5"]
Melles Griot LGR 193 (rated 1.5mW @ 543.5nm, does 4.3mW) [20"]
MI-lasers rebranded Melles Griot LYR 173? (rated 2mW @ 594.1nm, does 3.9mW) [18"]

Pretty good laser for the price. Beats paying over a grand for something that big!

More to come as I tinker! :tinfoil:

 

[IsaacT]

Pretty! Out of curiosity, what is divergence like on your 50mW 127?

 

[ultimatekaiser]

I havn't measured it exact...but I remember it's very good if it's aligned properly. I want to say .8 mRad

edit: nix that...looked it up. its about the same as my hercules. 1.25 mm diameter with .66 mRad divergence.

 

[Down with Umbrella]

That's awesome, I almost bought one a few months back but couldn't find a PSU. As soon as I found a PSU the tube sold.
Great score for 175

 

[ultimatekaiser]

we've 4 more if you want one. made a GB for the others. merideth sells the AC power supply brick for 125. that's only 300 bucks for one of the biggest nicest modern HeNe tubes you can get. (plus shipping and adding a 3 amp slow blow fuse...)

edit: I also would also like to add that this head has the end-caps affixed by small allen screws, not glued on. so it is very easy to clean and service, without having to remove the tube from the cylinder.

 

[Down with Umbrella]

Is there a thread for this? A Jdsu 1218 is the power supply if I remember correctly.

 

[ultimatekaiser]

Is there a thread for this? A Jdsu 1218 is the power supply if I remember correctly.

yes in the GB section right here. I'm using a 1218-1 if I'm not mistaken...

It's essentially one of these built into a lab enclosure. that's all it is. Got mine for $300 (lab supplies are more pricy)

but you could go to radioshack and easily replicate one and make your own labby for pretty cheap. just need an AC power cord with a ground, and a AC jack, wire it to the supply with a slow blow 3 amp fuse for safety, and then plug the head into it. its pretty easy to do. I can take photos of the inside of the official supply if you want to see. its pretty straight forward.

 

[Down with Umbrella]

Sounds good, I really need to sell a few items first ill PM you If I need further info. Looks great from what you posted.

 

[IsaacT]

Hey DWTU what do you have to sell? PM me

 

[ultimatekaiser]

nevermind...looks like someone snatched all four up. guess I snagged mine just in time.

 

[Down with Umbrella]

Wow when the man says jump, you gotta jump.

 

[ultimatekaiser]

yeah....they've been up for about a week and a half. hell of a deal. makes me glad I pounced now and didn't wait a week. normally these are around 900-1300 bucks surplus. they're a few thousand new, and they're excellent for holograms. just put the filter back on mine and its doing 21mW on the dot now with the filter on it. wonder how much farther up it'll go...

edit: if you want another good red, though the next size down Hwang is selling a coherent red and green that are $100 each IIRC might ask him about his.

 

[hwang21]

Wow that's an amazing tube you've got there :drool: that would look awesome if it were a bare tube

Thanks for the bump too :beer:

 

[ultimatekaiser]

Wow that's an amazing tube you've got there :drool: that would look awesome if it were a bare tube

Thanks for the bump too :beer:

you're very welcome :beer:
and you wouldn't want to bare tube anything bigger than what you have. they're very rough to run out of their tubing, as the larger ones are supported in very specific areas, and the tubing acts as a heat sink...as well as protection. the large ones are so sensitive that so much as running the ceiling fan in my room decreases its power half a mW from the uneven airflow, as well as the orientation changing its power. They're a bit more serious, and not for 'fiddling' with like the little ones. every little bit counts in how it operates. plus, it likely has magnets inside that shouldn't be moved either.

 

[hwang21]

Hmm I see. Well I guess the length and output of the HeNe makes up for the absence of glowing plasma I'm excited to see what you end up doing with it!

 

[ultimatekaiser]

yeah. I've seen a bare MG 927. its awesome to see like my SP-127. total eye candy....but while like that it runs very erratic from uneven cooling and mode competition between the different lasing lines. it needs to be in its cylinder, and that needs to be in its enclosure with its magnets and such, in the preferred orientation....or it just can't function right. my SP has magnets lining the bore all the way up and down. that's why they have such a short alden. because they're usually inside something else, for whatever application.