Laserscope - Conversion finished for show next weekend!

[aijii]

I asked dave to run the laser up at full power for an extended period of time to test the capabilities of the steering mirrors...

He did the test with the lid on, so he wouldn't have to wear safety glasses.

Some epoxy failed with heat, mirror dropped off, bleached shutter arm, vapourised epoxy and double sided tape, box full of smoke.

And then he rang me and somehow tried to blame me for it.

Nice one Dave

(the laser still works, optics seem to be clean).

(dave will post some pictures we took tonight, won't you dave )

(dave re-designed the mirror holder for the shutter arm, and we used better mirror).

Edit: I must confess, I too was responsible for some stupidity with this laser. The MOV in one of the switchmode supplies inside the laserhead exploded a few nights before, littering the baseplate with black crap as a result of me using a bolt just a tad too long and shorting out a live swmode heatsink to the baseplate. noisy, scary, smelly, and a little bit funny, especially when you reach around for to flip on a circuit breaker and get more than you bargained for.

[aijii]

10 Watts CW, outdoors, tiny amount of drizzle/spitty rain, 5pm, daylight still (hour or two before sunset IIRC)

this is before we ripped the cooling out of the trolley cart

[dsli_jon]

Now to finish the other scope!

Hear, hear!!!



Standing by for pix...
cheers...
j

[loopee]

I was in Melbourne for that weekend and got to catch up with Dave and Aijii and see it in action.

Here's some photos of it setup and in action





Aijii lost his lighter


Dave admiring his handiwork

and some video



It was a really clear night after it had been raining so there was very little crap in the air, so the beam shots look rather average from the front but it goes to demonstrate the raw power of this thing seeing the beams from behind.

All very impressive

BTW, guys thanks for letting me tag along

Troy

[megaton]

Thats awesome
(I need more power)

[dnar]

All I can say is NICE.

Just curious Dave, was this a back yard test? How did you go about shooting in the night sky with aircraft etc? Not sure which suburb your in or the legalities etc. Can you explain some more, did you need a permit?

[aijii]

Was a closing ceremony at a primary school for their fete. Set up the laser up on an embankment on one side of the school oval. Also had a screen setup (skeeta) with some full colour projections.

There is no "permit" per se with regards to CASA. You just provide them with all of the information about your show, (ie date/time/location/projection angles etc) and they advise you whether or not it is advisable to proceed, and they also issue a notice to airmen warning them of the lasershow details etc. We had to coordinate with the Melbourne airport control tower in this instance as the school was in the proximity of the inbound track from Tasmania. There were no flights at that time though, so we had the laser running for about 45 minutes all up.

The air was super clear that night, and it still looked quite impressive. A typical summer night after days and days of dusty wind would leave the atmosphere primed perfectly for an outdoor show with one of these...

[aijii]

BTW, guys thanks for letting me tag along

Troy

Thanks for all your help mate! I wouldn't have managed to set the screen up on my own, seeing as though Dave was off chasing the fairies that night

[QUAZAR]

Excellent, good work guys.

[Things]

Damn, I gotta get a flight down sometime just to see this thing (And you guys of course )

Cheers,
Dan