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Thread: Household Deathstar

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
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    Odessa, Ukraine
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    92

    Laser Warning Household Deathstar

    Here I'm starting a thread about the most high-energy laser that had ever been manufactured commercially for general lab use. The GOS-1001 Nd:Glass laser, that is rated for 1000 J of output energy! And it is the true peak of my collection. A few days ago I managed to get first coherent photons from it.

    So, I had a complete laser head but no power supply. A year or two ago I've bought 32 high energy high voltage capacitors for it but didn't do anything with them because I was busy building my other laser projects, such as ruby and copper vapour lasers. After finishing the CVL, I put hands on the GOS-1001 unit. Actually I needed only a power supply to charge the capacitors and triggering circuits for all four flashlamps, a water circulator to cool the laser head and loads of space in the room to put everything together. After a month of work, I mde first flashes of the lamps separately. After verifying that the lamps flash at the same time I've rebuilt the power supply into a final version. During the rebuilding I had to rewind the charging transformer and all 4 triggering transformers, as their electrical insulation was poor and it lead to failures. A real problem was to stack the capacitors. unfortunately I couldn't stack all 32 caps, as I found place only for 20 of them. In the manual for the laser head it is said that reliable lasing is at 20 kJ of pumping and the lasing threshold is at 15 kJ. my laser head is very old, the optical elements such as resonator mirrors and lamp reflectors are worn a lot, so I expected a real lasing threshold at 20 kJ. 20 caps allow to store safely exactly 20 kJ, and 25 when fully loaded. So I had a doubt wether it will lase at all.

    Afterall the power unit was assembled. It was a hard job to pile up 250 kg of capacitors and to wire them together. It was the turn of the water cooling system. Two days I have been fiddling with it as new and new water leaks appeared. After finishing this part of the job I've refreshed the insulation of internal wiring of the laser head, cleaned carefully all optics and flashlamps, aligned the resonator, installed in place the focusing lens and the target behind it... And it was ready for the first blast after very long period of collecting dust in the lab from which I had salvaged it.

    I charged the caps to 9 kJ of energy and hit the firing button. The result
    exceeded all expectations -- I've seen a lot of smoke from the target that was made of black plastic. The GOS1001 definately lased. Than I placed a 3mm thick steel plate and made anothe shot. I saw a heavy bunch of sparks with a loud bang flying away from the target. And than a second shot in the same place. Looking at light, I've seen a tiny hole through this plate.

    I tried increasing the pumpung energy to 20 kJ, but I could not shoot through this steel plate in a single shot -- the blast area increased in diameter in the hit point but it didn't go deep. And I found the reason quickly.
    Unfortunately, the focusing lens was short-focused so it was badly damaged with the plasma stream from burning steel. The surface of the lens became rough and the lens lost its transparancy. So, probably the focusing became too bad.

    I've measured the output energy on 9 kJ point with my laser energy meter and it showed 27J average... I didn't measure it on 20 kJ, as I'm afraid that the energy meter will be screwed.

    I'll remind that 1000J of energy it should blast from at least of 50 kJ of pumping...

    Now I need a new focusing lens, with f=30cm at least. And a bigger room

    Unfortunately it is very hard to capture the moment when the beam hits the target. The flash overloads the camera badly, so nearly nothing can be seen except white filling of the screen. So the photos are not very good.
    Click image for larger version. 

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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
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    Germany
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    Default

    ... this is a pretty scary bad-ass pulser!

    Viktor

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Fort Mill, SC USA
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    Default

    I don't know what to say except . . Wow!

    That was a lot of work resurrecting that powerful laser. I'm really glad your knowledge and time resulted in great success. What do you plan on doing with it now that it is operational?

    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
    Location
    Odessa, Ukraine
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    Default

    What do you plan on doing with it now that it is operational?
    I don't know yet, I know that while being a student I had a dream of having a laser gun like in some of my favourite video games and now I have it))))))

    At first I want to get full output from it and I think it would be great for public shootong gallery to earn some money on it. Only imagine, a real shooting gallery with a real laser blaster form sci-fi movies! The only one in the whole world! But, unfortunately CDRH inspectors will never permit such thing in a public place.

  5. #5
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    Oct 2012
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    Germany
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    1,478

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by dkumpula View Post
    I dWhat do you plan on doing with it now that it is operational?
    ... what about DIY fusion experiments

    Viktor

  6. #6
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    Nov 2017
    Location
    Odessa, Ukraine
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    Default

    what about DIY fusion experiments
    I know a dude who is interested in these, but I am trying to convince him that if the NIF facility in LNLL didn't achieve much in this area with a 2MJ 1.5 ns 355 nm pulsed laser then he won't get anything close to the fusion with a few tens or hundreds joules in a 20 ms pulse at 1060 nm.

  7. #7
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    Oct 2012
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    Germany
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    ... one of my (scool-time) ideas was around "overloading" a small area by combining all sorts of EM forces with air-breakdown - something like a pretty big "focussed" capacitor, a squenching Z-pinch, and a laser-breakdown in the same time -- hoped then, this would perform much better

    Viktor

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Beaverton, OR
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    292

    Default

    Put a clear window between the final optic and the material you are blasting, it will save your optics and that way you can use shorter focal length optics for a smaller spot size.

  9. #9
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    Oct 2012
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    Germany
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    Default

    ... use this, a sleeve and pressurized air to repell the sparks from the optics ...

    Viktor

  10. #10
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    Nov 2017
    Location
    Odessa, Ukraine
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    Some more sparks from metal. Pumping energy is 24 kJ, estimated output should me not less then 200-300J. The lens is replaced with one that has bigger focal length and it is not affected by plasma and debris now. It penetrates freely anything that is up to 2mm thick from one shot, but still can't deal with 3mm steel sheet. For this thickness two shots are needed.Click image for larger version. 

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