Hi Everyone,
As some of you may already know. I purchased a Cyonics/Uniphase laser head and power supply at BMI while on the "CVL Quest" with Jonathan. I bought the laser untested and figured it would be fun to mess arround with.
I have a little experiance with argons since I owned many 60X heads and power supplies over the years and have be aching to get back into them again. I don't know, Somthing about gas lasers still intrigues me.
Anyway, I bought this sucker for a good price and got it working at James' house. At that time I just had enough info from Sam's Laser FAQ to get the interlock jumpered and not out of standby. While I was there we got it to make around 3mw of single line 488nm.
Steve was able to give me some info on it and based on the model number on the head,,, 2201-20SL, It's a 20mw @ 488nm, single line, TEM00 head. Not bad!
So, I get the laser head home. From there I took the power supply and laser head apart and gave it a good cleaning. Both the PS and head had minimal dust buildup but I opted to clean it up anyway. I washed all the covers and the tube as well as blew out the PS with compressed air.
To my amazment, the Curtis meter inside the head indicates no use. The head indicates a munufacture date of 11/88 but I suspect the tube has either been replaced or not used since then.
After reassembling the laser I figured out how to get the laser out of standby by jumpering pins 12 and 13 therefore putting the laser into light mode and using the pot on the PS to control output power.
When I first had the laser at max output, It would only produce 22mw or so. After a good hard burn in at full power (on the pot) ror 4 hours or so, the laser is doing over 30mw! Not bad for this little argon.
I also noticed a sticker inside the head indicating this series of numbers 5222 100SL. Going off the part number on the head, "20SL" indicates a 20mW single line head. Does this part number possibly mean I have a 100mW single line head??
Now that I have the laser all cleaned up and making good power I'd like to get the AMP connector for the remote so I can build a control panel for it. If anyone has a spare 38 pin AMP connector thae want to sell,,, let me know!
Also, I would like to learn more about this power supply. If anyone has a copy of the repair manual for the Cyonics 2101, I'd love to get my hands on a copy.
Here are some pics for your enjoyment.