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Oh Yeah, New YAG Laser

I've done the air ionizing thing with my SSY-1 :) Almost can't see it but it goes POP :D I used a 3" F.L. lens to get it but it also chipped the lens on both sides :(

Mike
 





Yes it is krypton arc lamp pumped. And yes if it were diode pumped it would not need near as much power.
 
Gee that makes me really anxious to get my YAG! No where near as powerful as the one you acquired, but still I know I'll have some fun with it....
 
Aren't those Krypton lamps water cooled?  I tried to flash a krypton lamp once and ended up picking up glass from the floor and out of my face.  It was a high pressure Kr tube and it popped at only 3 Joules input.
Maybe I needed a small choke to limit peak current.

Mike
 
Yes the lamps and the rod are cooled using flow tubes in the pump cavity with distilled/de-ionized water.

I dropped 3600 uF at 450V into the little xenon flashtube that comes with the SSY-1. The coil I had shaping the pulse probably saved it as the pulse duration was very long so it probably flashed twice. It was the only coil I had and I didn't want to make one. I just wanted to temper the spike. Wow, was that little SSY-1 powerful. I wish I had an energy meter because I think I was getting all of 1-2 J output since the Q-switched died on the second shot.
 
Damn good deal, 220v 50A socket!! I whould switch it over to 808 diodes instead.
 
Bringing back the old thread since I finally got around to firing this beast up. It works! I was running about 20A through the power supply and it fired the arc lamp and run in CW mode no problem. My garage smells like burned wood and melted plastic.

I am running into a few problems though, but not unexpected. The q-switch is not working and I cannot pump more than 20A into the power supply. It shuts down above 20A. I'll have to trace the q-switch issue as it's possible it is the RF generator since the frequency meter is only showing like 5kHz when it should be showing 30kHz and I cannot fire single pulses. It could also be the modulator in the q-switch. It's acousto-optic and it may not be resonating properly.

I have some pictures and I'll film it in operation tomorrow. My best guess is it is running between 5-10W at the moment. I'll have to bring a meter home from work and measure it.
 
The Q switch in the SSY-1 is a fragile part and wont take anything that high but with that much input --- Who needs the switch anyway  ;D

You may need a water cooled sensor head for that YAG -- even at low power, It's a BUNCH of photons.  I consider anything under ~600 Khz as audio frequency. I have never worked with an acoustic modulator like that. What's the voltage and impedance? You have a real chalange here.
Congrats -- Mike
 
the q-switch is water cooled but it could be the source of the all the problems since the beam has to pass through the q-switch regardless if it is operating or not. I'll have to look into it.

You have to have a q-switch. That's how you punch holes in sheet steel. At 30kHz pulses it would cut through a thin sheet of steel pretty quickly.
 
How does the Q switch circuit limit input current to 20 Amps?? Don't seem right to me. Will it still lase with the Q open CW or does it need to pulse to allow the pumping inversion to build up ??
I agree that the pulsing is needed to cut metal but sometimes, gas assist is used especially on CO2.

Mike
 
The q-switch is water cooled and has a temperature sensor as well as an RF input. Although I do not get a high SWR indication, a faulty modulator may allow the q-switch to heat up quickly as the power level increases tripping the sensor and shutting down the system. It may have nothing to do with 20A except that the optical power level reaches a point to trip the q-switch alarm. The cooling system may be able to compensate until the system reaches a higher output at about 20A. I'll pull it to test the theory.

I'm thinking this because there are no power alarms tripped when the system shuts down and it resets and operates again without any problem. The laser operates in CW mode without any problems except the 20A limit.
 
kind of off topic but would a 20 watt co2 put holes in thin steel?If no how many watts of 10 066 nm would i need?
 
A 20 Watt CO2 might cut thin metal but will need to be focused very well and most likely need some gas assist. We have a small fabricator here using a 1,300 watt CO2 cutting up to 1/4" but it uses a gas nozzle. Focusing CO2 needs special lenses like ZnSe.

Mike
 
Well I got some video and some additional pictures of the YAG in operation. I was right about the output power. When tested it was putting out 8 watts and that was after removing the q-switch. Time to do an overhaul. I'll realign the optics and open the cavity and check out the status of the arc lamp, flow tubes, reflector, etc. Cleaning up the reflector and maybe replacing the arc lamp will give an added output boost and with properly aligned optics it should do quite well.

Some manufacturers drive me batty. The laser system is a Lasermetrics 9500 series from Laser Applications, Inc. but I cannot find any kind of labeling to indicate what specific model it is. According to the service manual the lowest output for the 9500s is 60W but the laser head has a <35W warning sticker.
 
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