new toy, baby Nd:YAG laser

[andythemechanic]

well, that's exactly what I plan to do with my MK367

Did you build your charger/PFN on sam's notes?

You got an MK367 ? Very nice! Where did you get it? Do you have the green version ? Datasheet of the MK367 says max one puls per second @ 10 Joules input.

[Experimentonomen]

Is that a focusing lens you got there in front of the laser ? I really need a pfn because the extra joules i need to get this thing to do anything heats the whole thing so after 10 shots in 3 minutes the entire frame is hot.

I have most likely already fried the dye cell q-switch. Im guessing the coil will be alot of trial and error depending on voltage and capacitance.

[andythemechanic]

Is that a focusing lens you got there in front of the laser ? I really need a pfn because the extra joules i need to get this thing to do anything heats the whole thing so after 10 shots in 3 minutes the entire frame is hot.

I have most likely already fried the dye cell q-switch. Im guessing the coil will be alot of trial and error depending on voltage and capacitance.

Yes its a focusing lens, or actually an abused laser diode collimator. I used this setup some months ago to mark glass. Worked very well and I was able to shot holes 8mm deep into a glass block :-) . When you really have such high treshold power it could be right, that the dye cell is gone. You could try to take it out and see if the treshold decreases.
I calculated the inductance of the coil with this calculator: http://www.fenixtechnology.com/fenixcalc.html

[Experimentonomen]

That calculator is rather useless to me as i dont have a clue what the data on the lamp is nor what the pulse width should be but i guess the coil should be somewhere between 300-600µH for a capacitance of around 100-300µF and a voltage around 300-400V.

[Experimentonomen]

Yay it works!! I now have 117.5µF and 640V, the pfn coil is wound on a empty solder spool, two layers with 1.5mm2 mains wire. I have also added a lens from a laser printer i front of it and now i get a bright blue speck like 1cm in front of the lens when i fire the laser!!

A vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqveraQtO40