SP 2011 Alignment

[ltaudi1]

Is there any one close to me that would be interested in giving me a hand and teach me how to properly align this beast. I had it working a few days ago and I have tried the whole shinning a small hene down the bore but I just dont know what I am doing enough to get proficient at this.

[Lasernerd]

Is there any one close to me that would be interested in giving me a hand and teach me how to properly align this beast. I had it working a few days ago and I have tried the whole shinning a small hene down the bore but I just dont know what I am doing enough to get proficient at this.

where are you?

[ltaudi1]

Elysburg, PA Central Pennsylvania. Sorry probably should have included that.

[mixedgas]

akron, ohio

I'm probably the closest gas laser guy to you outside of upstate ny, philly, or toronto.

but PM me and I'll give you my phone number. SPs are not that bad. but you need to know one or two things they dont tell you in the book.

BTW, don't feel bad, its not unusual to take 8 hours the first time you ever do it.


Steve

[heruursciences]

SP argon lasers aren't too bad since the bore is pretty big. I find a green or yellow HeNe to work best with the initial set-up since they are sealed on mirror tubes. Red ones work too, but the brighter reflected spot tends to be from the AR side of the mirror and can be maddening. If you've never aligned a gas tube laser before, you'll have a bit of fun finding which beam goes to what at first, but you'll get the hang of it.

Basically what you do is: Shoot the tube to get the HeNe's laser dot to go through the laser bore. THEN, adjust your HR or OC mirror on the side of the tube away from the hene till you get the hene to twinkle from the laser being reflected back into it...

Then adjust the mirror closest to the hene till it twinkles even more. Then power the beast up and about 35% of the time it will be lasing if so gently press on the mirror mount closest to the hene to find which spot makes it go brighter, and adjust the mount closest to the spot you pressed inward. If not lasing, try pressing or gently pulling on the mount till you see a flash of laser light. If no flash occurs do a vertical search by loosening the mirror mount bolt in one axis enough to wobble th plate in and out while slowly turning the other adjustment in and out about 2 turns, very slow until you get a flash.

Hope this helps.

PS this shows some of the stuff i'm talking about. http://users.757.org/~ethan/lasers_2/

[Laserman532]

shooting the laser is basically a waste of time (too many reflections to contend with). ION lasers have tons of gain and shooting it is not necessary.

Use a shadow box system. Take a box paint inside black, stick a white card on the back of the inside of the box. Place the box about one foot in front of laser, rock the back end plate and you should see a light blue spot going up and down. Once you find that dot adjust the back plate to center that dot in the center of the very large bore florescence.

Turn your current up and rock the front end plate vertically while scanning your horizontal from left side to right side and you will see a large flash, when you see the large flash adjust vertical until lasing. you are now happy

[mixedgas]

1. hes got a sealed mirror tube
2. I called him and recommended going for the "spots" method.
3. He was running conservative on the tube current while attempting to align, and better to be conservative then cranking it maxed out, so I'm willing to bet on his next attempt he gets it. He was trying at 10A.

WHICH IS A GOOD THING!

LM532, I tend to agree with you, except for two points:

HENE alignment is really for aircooleds and things like Enterprise IIs, if you can pop the optics out, the mirror reflection technique is best. Aircooleds usually do not have enough gain for the reflected light method. Or shall I say that ALC/OMNI mirrors are really tailored to their application and do not reflect much bore plasma.

On a sealed mirror with wedge in both optics, he best off using the hene to locate the faint front mirror reflection of the plasma light, and then going from there. SP's newer coatings really do not leak that much light through the rear mirrors, so he may be forced to use the hene. Also SP's newer mirrors seem to have huge amounts of wedge, to get the ghost beam away from the beamlok sensors.

Steve

[Laserman532]

1. hes got a sealed mirror tube
2. I called him and recommended going for the "spots" method.
3. He was running conservative on the tube current while attempting to align, and better to be conservative then cranking it maxed out, so I'm willing to bet on his next attempt he gets it. He was trying at 10A.

WHICH IS A GOOD THING!

LM532, I tend to agree with you, except for two points:

HENE alignment is really for aircooleds and things like Enterprise IIs, if you can pop the optics out, the mirror reflection technique is best. Aircooleds usually do not have enough gain for the reflected light method. Or shall I say that ALC/OMNI mirrors are really tailored to their application and do not reflect much bore plasma.

On a sealed mirror with wedge in both optics, he best off using the hene to locate the faint front mirror reflection of the plasma light, and then going from there. SP's newer coatings really do not leak that much light through the rear mirrors, so he may be forced to use the hene. Also SP's newer mirrors seem to have huge amounts of wedge, to get the ghost beam away from the beamlok sensors.

Steve

Thats cool, different strokes for different folks. I've worked on everything with a SP logo on it and never used an alignment laser, you just have to know what you are looking for

[ltaudi1]

Got her up and running, took me a while to get the technique down but now i think i can do, hours of fighting until Steve helped me, thanks to everyone for the help, this hobby couldn't function with out all of us working together.

[allthatwhichis]

Um, I don't believe you... Need proof; pictures will work but video is better.