Laserwinkel's ongoing Spectra-Physics projects...
I got off MSN with Laserwinkel today and was astonished that he made quite the deal.
"What? You got another whitelight? And it's a large frame this time...?"
He managed to get his hands on a Spectra-Physics 2010-05 with Ar-Kr fill, at least according to the warning sticker. Complete with 2540 power supply, 2170 remote and a lot of bits and bobs (electronics, optics) which were used to build this thing into a projector somewhere in the 90's. Even the computer that was controlling it is there -- an old Windows 3.1 machine with a New Method LAS-25 ISA DAC!
My jaw dropped when I heard the price. 200 euros, as the previous owner figured it to be a non-working piece of scrap and he had no idea on how to fix it. According to him, the unit was recently re-pumped and removed in working condition when the venue it was in shut down due to financial trouble.
Rear of the 2540. The 208V three-phase was removed neatly this time, so no trouble with installing a replacement. The head cable was permanently attached to the PSU and, luckily, NOT disassembled with a cutting torch or bolt cutters.
The guts of the 2540. Amazing, what they managed to cram inside this thing, as it can actually run two heads simultaneously. And it's half the size of the 265!
The 2170 along with a little box that has a pair of DB15 plugs on the front and a BNC on the back. The remote has a 'modulation' plug (also BNC), but I'm unable to find any specifications on how to operate it. Hey, at least this one has a working key!
And here's what's inside the box, a power transformer and a few op-amps. The op-amps are labeled C, M and Y, so they've got to do with a colour signal going in (or out) somewhere. I don't see any RF, so I doubt it's a PCAOM driver, does it connect to the SP2170 and does the head have some kind of modulation on the other end? I don't suspect it to have an internal PCAOM.
Close-up on the plug coming from the head. There appears to be some damage on the top pins (black wires), those could be the magnet wires. Aside from that, there are still two danglies to be sorted, those could just be plain ground.
Big pile of optics, starting with a makeshift beam-table (at the top), some projector head (at the bottom) with General Scanning G120D/G120DT galvanometers, and a big gap at the right-hand side which could be where the PCAOM used to be. There might have been some fiber couplers in there as well, in years long gone, but right now it's just a pile of old galvos, mirrors and adjustable mounts. Even that was worth the €200!
Some shots of the head. It's far from as clean as the 168 (yes, it was on the floppy-stand for the photo, shoot Laserwinkel for that!) and looks a lot less pretty as it's completely encased. Not sure which way round it is, I'm unable to make out the wire colours from these photos. But it's a sealed mirror unit, so if it runs, it runs!
Close up on the type plate. Year of Mfg. is 1988, model number is 2010-05, serial number is 1205.
And a shot of the warning sticker. It says 15W Argon-Krypton, but I'd be surprised if it actually does that. Might have been the cause of the damaged plug earlier though, since some previous owner may have run it a little on the 'run-it-till-it-smokes' mode to get every mW of power out of it. Could also explain the re-fill.
Seems we've got some work to do soon. Fixing not one, but TWO whitelights in the same garage, and this one is even bigger than the 168 that's already under repair. I'll keep everyone updated, and I'll probably need to find a generator, as the 2010 requires an ENORMOUS amount of juice from the grid...
But hey, if we pull this lot off, time to do some massive parties. Picture the 2010 doing beam shows, with the 168 doing the graphics.
Amazing what people tend to throw away these days... those whitelights still give most DPSS' a run for their money. Fat reds? Nah, I'll stick to TEM00...
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....and armed only with his trusty 21 Zorgawatt KTiOPO4...
Originally Posted by Laserman532
