Blue beam quality

[steve-o]

Mmmm..
We have a Bristol over here in the states (I guess named after your Bristol)
It's located on the state line of Virginia and Tennessee. Each half claims it as their own; Bristol Va and Bristol Tn. Good drag racing there every spring.
Steve

[JimBo]

You pinch all our names off us.
You even have a New England

Jim

[buffo]

You pinch all our names off us.

Reminds me of something my old computer science teacher once told me:

"Good programmers write their own code."

"Great programmers steal code written by others and re-use it."

Adam

PS: And before you ask, I turned out to be just an average programmer, which is why I'm not programming for a living (despite my CS degree) and I have to BUY code written by others...

[steve-o]

Yeh Jim, we pinch some, but then can invent our own, sometimes..

• Big Beaver, Pennsylvania
• Possum Trot Kentucky
• Ding Dong Texas
• Deep Hole Virginia

well I could go on..
Here's the complete list if you're interested

http://www.accuracyproject.org/towns.html

[JimBo]

You can keep yours
I used to live in Bag Lane, there is also a Slag Lane near me too.

Jim

[allthatwhichis]

I used to live in BFE, Florida... I think we have a few of them though. they're usually not incorporated...

[The_Doctor]

You can keep yours
I used to live in Bag Lane, there is also a Slag Lane near me too.

Jim

For hobbits and ho's, respectively?

And yes, Bristol, you got it right.

And yes, I like House, he is an inspiration. But my namesake prefers jelly babies and metal dogs and likes his screwdrivers to be more sonic. If at all possible.

[aijii]

Yes, but founded on good observation. Anyone who makes a strong exception, maybe strong enough to disprove the rule, is welcome. Adrian Feudale (recently trading as Engineering Concepts, also selling Lasever units) sells most LambdaPro lasers off eBay entirely, to labs. Most that were sold on eBay were over-quota, according to him, and the pick of any run won't likely be going to a risk of poor bidding, they go to those who pay the full asking price. My early UG laser IS very good indeed, but I bought it when it was more important to LambdaPro to use eBay sales to attract business. While I can't be sure that they don't still put out their best lasers that way from time to time, two things suggest not so.

1. I don't think they are selling that way at all anymore, at least, not through Adrian Feudale (who is sole US and Canada distributor), so it's not important to them any more, or they lost money to the point where they quit (and no doubt initially ceased risking their best lasers on eBay).

2. LambdaPro lasers insides were extremely good in early versions in each range; with later ones, it's wise to open and inspect and carefully brush out solder bits before powering up first time. It might have worked on their benches, but after shipment, all bets are off. A biggish chunk dropped out of the PSU case of one of mine, during my first inspection. Also, later boards use less parts, there is a lot more empty board space, suggesting they're cutting costs on those lasers sold on eBay. They'll work to spec (though even that has been a tad loose, at times), but they won't be pushing for excellence as they had been, as they've already proved themselves well enough in that market (eBay). I doubt they lost patience or competence, I just think that they reserve the best for those who pay the full monty. An UG 100 mW laser can still be bought from them, at $795! No-one would pay that on eBay now, so they won't sell their best there.

That's real data there. While I don't know how many firms are the same, I think it's a fair assumption that several are the same, and that the good deals on eBay are those from firms who do a large part of their business that way.

Funny that, I found the earlier Lambdapro laser PSU's to be sucky. They looked like a 4 year old put them together - a damn mess of wires, with dodgy things like earth cables wrapped around and soldered to standoffs etc.

[The_Doctor]

How early is 'early'? I have an early UGA that uses a late LPS-100 PSU, which confuses that point no end. I've attached two pictures of it. I've seen worse, this one is a bit cluttered with wires, but it's no way as bad as a later UGA I had to return once. It also has a lot more parts, as you can see, most of the board is filled. Later models have so much empty space that it looks like a flight deck in there. It's such a ruthless cut of parts that I suspect cost saving, not improvement. Not sure though, the latest one I had, just sold, was more stable than any previous one, despite that lower parts count.

[Zoof]

It looks like I had a later model; pic of it here.

Quality was just OK. One of the fan bolts was pushing up agains the pcb and damaging it, I cut it short. The pot in the front panel is a 25 turn intensity adjustment pot installed by LP. The fan was quite noisy.
If you haven't seen it yet, you might be interested in the rest of the gallery too.