argon krypton Ebay-

[gottaluvlasers]

i cant do this, but some of you bigger companies out there may be interested in this-

http://cgi.ebay.com/C30563-Coherent-...QQcmdZViewItem

dont know what it would take to get this up and running, but it looks like a BAD ASS laser system!! 13 WATTS whitelight- or close to- seems like a damn good system!

just saw it browsing through and thought i'd share. anyone know if its any good or what it would take to get it goin?

-Marc

[Laser Ben]

What's better then 15W of whitelight? 6W of whatever wavelength you choose. That is a dye laser IIRC.

[DZ]

Dye laser? I bet its a dead laser! Your probably looking at a complete refurb to get it going again. Its 2 tubes, one argon and one krypton. If you look at the brewsters, you can see one of them is rotated 90 degrees, gee, wonder why that would be? It'd be a nice item to rip apart for the parts, but with high mileage on the argon and, most likely a gassed out krypton due to age, it probably wouldn't be worth the shipping cost.

[buffo]

Yeah, it's an old Medical Photocoagulation laser. You see these things on E-bay quite often. In fact, I've purchsed other Laser surplus items from Outback before. (SP 163 heads, mostly) It it's prime, this laser set would have been an interesting toy. But Like DZ said, it's probably junk.

Sure you could get it for a grand (plus another $500 in shipping), but you'd likely spend $6000 getting the pair fixed, and that's assuming there isn't more damage that we can't see. (I, too, wonder about the rotated Brewster Stem, though in fairness the tube could have been mounted that way.) Then you've got to heavily modify the unit to strip all the medical dose-related electronics off it before you can use it for light shows. Ugh.

On a tangent here - Dye laser Ben? Where on earth did you get that idea? Granted, most dye lasers are pumped with an argon, but do you see a dye pump? A second resonating cavity for the dye? And why would you use a dye laser for photogoagulation? No, that's a very standard medical laser. The desk design is a dead giveaway. (They're all over E-bay, and they all look the same.)

While were on the subject though... Dye lasers - yuck! Toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic liquid surrounded by high voltage. Not a good idea. (You know it's not *if* you'll have a leak, but when, right?) Oh, and the efficiency is lousy to boot. Might be a cool toy to play with in someone else's garage for a day or so, but I'll be damned if I want that slop in my house. (And I can't imagine the problems related to taking one on the road!)

I'd rather have a Kr/AR whitelight (or a Kr Ar pair like this setup) with an 8 channel PCAOM to select the colors I want... (Of course, you still need 3 phase power, water cooling, and a crew to lift it!)

Adam

[dsli_jon]

i cant do this, but some of you bigger companies out there may be interested in this- dont know what it would take to get this up and running, but it looks like a BAD ASS laser system!! 13 WATTS whitelight- or close to- seems like a damn good system!

Hey Marc -

Good to hear from ya last nite, bud sorry I missed your call... we'll try again...

RE: the Coh 920, well #1, this thing will NEVER do 13 Watts of WL - this is another classic case of 'sellers' simply moving stuff wholesale they buy at other auctions, and haven't a frieking clue what they are selling - those stickers list the THEORETICAL MAXIMUM of these I-90 tube designs - if ANYONE knows how to get 9 Watts of Ar output and 4 Watts of Kr output out of these tubes, PLEASE CALL ME ASAP!!!!

Really, it's just not gonna happen - several factors involved, but in my experience (and we have converted 3 of these) the very, very best you could hope for would be 7-8W of Ar and 1.5-2W of Kr MAX - ie, best we got was 7W of Ar and 1.7W of Kr - all tube pressures perfectly within spec, and nice, clean brewsters/HR/OC, and peaked to the nth-degree...

Still, IF this system IS working to spec, you could end up wth close to 8W of WL, and that's not bad for an all-in-one unit like this...especially for a grand + shipping. And ya just can't beat the beam-quality and spectrals. They are very heavy (but heavy-duty) and really make for a better install system than a show system... see http://www.lasershs.com/lasershow_pr...lennia2000.htm as a great example...And the I-90 tubes are tough, tough, tough....

RE: 'dye laser' - Ben, I am thinking you were just making some sort of positive comment about the 'coolness of dye lasers', (I agree!) and not saying this IS a dye system - while these CAN be configured with a dye head (we bought one like that one time, just for the Argon pump-head in it), I am not seeing it installed in this particular unit...if it WAS installed, there would really be no need for a Kr - just the Ar-pumper and the dye-head section next to it...

RE: 'dead laser', well DZ, good points - I think I know what you were thinking with the '90˚ tube rotation' (sagged cathode, right? But not necessarily - that MIGHT be for more-desireable H-polarization for this particular type of system - being that the 'business-end' is fiber-delivery, the x-polarization might be better for that (ion vets...MixedGas... ClanD... help?...right/wrong?? ) - but either way, good call on the 'high-mileage' as well... Still, with pros like MixedGas, here, that HAVE the gear to re-gas these tubes, $1K + shipping + a reasonable cost-ing re-gas from Steve, there (we pay over $4500. for a re-gas / tube!) - that's still a LOT cheaper than a 171 or Chroma 10...

Still, I think unless you really wanted to 'play' and 'LEARN Ions' with this thing, you are much better off just buying an already-done 4-5W WL I-90 'conversion'... you can even get them with modded-Am 909 PSUs, and run single-phase! (just at higher amps)

Last note, while we are all 'DHL-bashing', here here's what THEY did with one of these we bought one time (in fact it was the Argon/Dye system)...

Miraculously, the I-90 tube was FINE, (which we completely took out to install in a different system) and is still purring-away to-date...but this thing was a friekin' MESS....I am pretty sure they DROPPED it off at least one dock.. @#$%*!!!!

Marc, we can chat more live about this when you call me back for those variance ??s, cool? - peace...

- J

[buffo]

OMG Jon!

Those pictures - what a mess! I think I would have cried. Or sued someone...

Yuck. Hard to believe the pump laser wasn't damaged. Still, I bet it took a long time to clean up all the spilled dye.

BTW, re: your comments about refurbing tubes - I don't know if Steve Roberts has access to the equipment anymore. (I think not.) He's certainly got the knowledge, but there's a lot of specialized gear (baking ovens, vacuum pumps, etc) that I don't think he can put his hands on anymore.

As for the rotated brewster - that's what I was getting at in my post; they may have mounted the tube that way on purpose. But a sagging cathode would explain it too. (I was even thinking that it might have sheared off right at the tube, and was only being held in place by the rubber bellows!)

Bottom line, no one in their right mind sells something like this for a grand unless they know it's junk. (And contrary to what the listing says, Outback *has* tested lasers before, so they certainly have the know-how to at least figure out if this thing is worthless or not. My guess is they know, but aren't telling, which is pretty typical of most surplus sellers on E-bay.)

Adam

[Laser Ben]

This is the one I was thinking of. There was one at a local shop called HSC and they powered that one up for me. After about 25 minutes you have a watt or whatever color you choose!

Forgot link!

http://cgi.ebay.com/C30564-Coherent-...QQcmdZViewItem

[UV99LASER]

I have personally owned 12 or 14 of these.
Of all of those only one was bad. It was a severely over pressure krypton tube. It did do 250mW.
The tubes are placed exactly as they came from the factory with one rotated 90%.
I have seen 2.2 watts out of the krypton lasers and 14 out of the dye laser argon tubes.

The best thing to do is rip the table off the unit and power up the tubes with standard I-90 supplies or Spectra Physics 265 exciter UV supplies.

Skipp

[DZ]

sagged cathode, right?

Wasn't really thinking sagged cathode, it'd be rotated 180. I was thinking more of polarization.

[gottaluvlasers]

hey guys,

guess it wasnt so good after all. gotta excuse me, im not too familiar with the ion stuff. im spoiled, i jumped on the laser bandwagon with solid state yags. got an argon, but havent touched it in about a year. (and not completely mine)

tell ya one thing, i would give my right leg to spend about a week or so in some of your labs (or where ever the wife lets you put everything...lol...)!!! DAAAAAMN must be laser heaven!!!!

-Marc