Review: Coherent D3 430nm Laser

Well Here's my review of the Coherent D3 430-10. This is a Directly doubled 430nm Laser. It uses a 860nm laser and a D*KDP crystal. The output of this laser is better then a Coherent Compass 532 in terms of beam specs, mode, and stability. The laser is in the same packaging as a Compass 532 but uses a linger case. Also, unlike the 532 that was mass produced, these $48,900 laser units were all custom made and the circuits were made mostly by hand. From what I have been told, there are less then 20 of these units sold world wide. I believe these were designed for holography and microscope use. The unit is 19" long, about 5" wide, and 4" tall. It takes a 120-240V input and has the ability to use a remote interface/RS-232.

Construction Quality

With this laser costing well over the price of a new BMW, it sure does not lack in the quality department! Everything is fit perfectly and all the components are top of the line. The internal Power Supplies(3 of them) all retail at over $200 a piece. The connections and key switch are high quality! The overall machine work on the case is outstanding and it fits together perfectly. The stickers all fit perfectly without any gaps.

Performance:

This particular laser has a problem, sometimes it starts just fine, and other times it just doesn't, this does not seem to have anything to do with temperature. When it does start, the beam and color is amazing, it is outputting about 12mW after 15 minutes of operation. It gets slightly warm, but this is from the power supplies, not the laser head inside.

Practical uses

As far as laser shows go, count this one out, there is no way that this 12mW with no blanking will work for anything. For holography, this laser would be one of the best. It has the beam specs of the best laser out there, the Compass 532, and a unique color, i don't know of a company that even sells this wavelength!

More Pictures in the next post!! :D

Here are some more pictures of the laser!!!

Do the images work? The other forums I posted on said they didn't while I could see them.

Nice find Ben... Nice pix's, cool lookin unit.
You can see that they had to do a lot of mods on the controller board.

I was looking at this unit to add to the collecting too but couldnt justify it as I just got another shipment of diodes in.
If you ever need any of those Acopian bricks...I have a few spares.

Its a nice looking blue...thats for sure.

It's a really nice unit! I think the problem is actually with the one power supply as it gets very hot. I'll check the voltage tonight and see if that needs replaced.


I may be selling this soon to pay for the rest of my projector.

wow you can see alot of work has gone into that unit, any idea as to how old the unit is ben

I believe the sticker said 1992. So, pretty old...

like marconi said, I guess that was an early production unit, more post prototype .... i like the little nest of resistors in the top left of the PCB

all the best .. Karl