Got Watts?
For the record, 532 is a annoying boring color, and laserscope beams are fat blobs. Bright fat blobs. I'd rather have a I200 or a Innova Sabre.
Here are the plusses/minuses of each as I see them:
Laserscope Plusses:
Big pulsed power -40W plus
Decent CW power (if you find a good laser) - can someone clarify what kinds of CW powers are realistically attainable ? I'm hearing anything from 2W to 20W.. but whats realistic
real bastard to make good optics for, can take some abuse in the field.
Actually not hard to keep working if your willing to learn and have some skills, actually not much harder then a car with conventional carburation (remember those?) or a lawn tractor to maintain. Nobody but laserman has ever gotten smart and split them into three packages. If you keep lamps and optics and crystals maintained, and keep some spares, basicly doesn't crash. After all, what doctor would tolerate his system crashing with a fiber stuck inwards towards a patients prostate or kidney. Which is a clue to why its built like a heavy safe, a petite surg nurse or a klutz doctor cant knock it over. Actually once aligned, kinda hard to screw up the alignment if you keep your fingers off more then one knob at a time.
After all, a year ago I just tuned one that was screwed up by a total idiot, and I had no problems finding lasing. You need two thermal power meters to align one , and worse case a hene or diode the first one or two times. I should mention I only get tp touch one evry three or four years. I'm laserscope newbie, and while I hate the co;;imating optics, the cavity itself is not near as bad as a argon to work on. Why, you might ask>? Because Lamp pumped YAG has gain out the wazoo. 1064 WANTS To and I really should say DEMANDS TO LASE. I also have found the laserscope user community tends to answer phone calls. The service manual optics section is actually written well, and in simple English, because hospital biomed techs can screw up boiling water for Macaroni and Cheese. (I'm told that is called a Kraft Dinner in the rest of the world)
Graphics aint its thing, but if you alternate the scan speed of every other frame, A Pat Murphy(tm) Idea, it fills in the dashes. Or very the Q switch frequency sliightly. A laserscopes idea of a neat image is some text or a laser media test pattern or a logo or simple scrolling text , your not gonna run "Creation" with it unless you have a big building, dam or mountain to scan on. I've scanned test patterns with a 50 watt yag before, The idea is use a laserscope to make money and then buy a used verdi or millenia V to do graphics with. Other upside, dead or working KTPs are all over the place.
You can pump a dye for red or orange, but again, a dye takes skills and practice. If you dont think a dye is a practical large show laser, Ask Pink Floyd about Division Bell, which is almost as cool as the Gold vapor reds.
BTW, a dye pump is maybe one international standard filing cabinet drawer in size, often half that, and the heads are maybe two standard international sized school lunchboxes in size.
Laserscope Minusses:
Big fuckoff heavy washing machine enclosure
Lots of work to convert to something approaching portable
Only Green
Air Cooleds are still water cooled - and need to watch out for ambient temperature
Can blow chunks off the KTP if not careful
A lot to align (hence a lot to go wrong) <- somebody want to clarify this for me ?
need 40amp 240VAC socket
EVERYTHING NEEDS A 40 amp 240 socket, just with a KTP at least it can be single phase...
....
CuBr Plusses:
Green/Gold output
Less work required to make a portable laser projector
Aircooled
less power draw than laserscope
CuBr just wants to lase, so not a lot to go wrong in terms of alignment <-somebody care to clarify this for me, again ?
CuBr Minusses:
Not as powerful
needs a warm up and cool down
have to replace tubes every xxx hours
no CW output
CUBR is actually a very different look then the KTP or argon. colors that just make you go WOW, and drool. The green plus yellow actually look bluish white in some cases. A lack of power with a CuBR is not what I would describe as a problem, duie to the high peak powers and the wavelengths. Fat beams use smoke much better then a thin argon or DPSS beam, and the yellow is close to optimal for many fogs.
Here is what I learned using L. Michael Robert's one in say 2002.
downcollimate it onto the galvos.
Then recollimate it with a single lens.
scans better graphics then the KTP.
Tube was 700$ + shipping for 500 minimum hours in 2002 dollars, owner said closer to 700 hours in between tubes. tube took 20-40 minutes to change and was nowhere near the trouble of a argon to change. Sorta like swapping out a big sealed mirror HENE or co2 tube. Lases weakly with only a rear mirror. OC is actually just a thick piece of glass, AR coated on one side. Thyratron was Russian and rated for 1500 to 2000 hours minimum.
Some simpler pangolin shows actually looked good in CUBR , "learning to fly" actually looked good, as did abstracts and scrolling text with big cambridges at 8K. LMR was suprised when I hooked my quadmod to it, so was everybody else, to the point that Spektronika or Pulse decided to start shipping a pcaom with some CVLS.
CUBR is actually quite compact,
warmup was 5 minutes to lasing, 20 to full power.
Somewhat Sensitive to line voltage on US/CANADA/MEXICO 15 amp circuits. On a Phatt euro or Ozzie Ring Main, NO Problemo.
had a simple set of adjustments on one "mirror" on the sealed mirror tube for peaking.
A Spectronika or Pulslaser is basicly a russian/bulgarian CuBR with hydrogen and neon as the gasses. Hydrogen boosts power up to 30%, google Chris Little copper hybrid... Tubes pretty much work or die, the power falloff its not that bad.
fragilty, not too bad, would not trust it to UPS, but no problems riding in the back seat of a van or your car. Nowhere near as bad as ion laser brewster stems. Quartz is a tough material and the tube is fat and thick walled to take the shockwaves from the pulses when running.
If you can get a norseld or oxford lasers unit you just got a Porsche.
Downside, a screw up by reaching onto the wrong terminal is a quick death. However on the one I saw they were pretty much well insulated.
Effects trend towards beam tables and slow scans, but witha copper, you will have a colorful show that no one will complain about not audiance scanning.
As tubes go, a CVL is easy to make, I mean nearly every even slightly technological country can make a copper bromide. The Chinese, Indians, Russians, Japanese, Iranians, Norwegians, Bulgaria, Oz, Canada, Pakistan, Israel all have made CuBrs. A few Americans have made them at home. The cvl is not much harder to work on nor much bigger in size then a lexel 88 head. It is however dense because the CVL 5000V 2 A transformer is in the head.
If I didnt own a truck or trailer for the car, I'd go for the CVL. With care, it and a projector would fit in a medium size sedan.
Downside, tubes are pretty much sole source, usually bulgaria, unless you have a oxford where the tube parts are interchangable and removable and designed for a rebuild, or for shoving new copper into the furnace with a long, long, spoon.
www.laserfx.com/Backstage.LaserFX.com/Hobby/CVLguide-V101.pdf
PS
Dont rule out a Millenia or Verdi or a coherent or SP OEM 5 watt CW yag, they are out there.
PS PS, you can now reimburse me for going to at least 3 LFXs and 3 ILDAs to learn all that....
PS PS PS (sexist unmarried guy analogy in Ozzie terms)
CubR = Kylie or Olivia when she was younger, KTP = Marrilyn Monroe.
Steve
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Originally Posted by GooeyGus
the professional Hack . The no budget Hack.
