Old laser i bought for US$14, any good? (with pics).

[Diachi]

Very nice find , and a great deal ! Gotta love those little argons with the glass cathode bell.

[shrad]

nice! seems you have something between 50mW and 100mW, as you seem to have no smoke in the air and you see the beam easily

[dave]

That looks like one of the nec3030 kits Oatley electronics in Australia used to sell..

[Psi]

nice! seems you have something between 50mW and 100mW, as you seem to have no smoke in the air and you see the beam easily

na, i was using a little smoke

[Psi]

Very nice find , and a great deal ! Gotta love those little argons with the glass cathode bell.

yeah, definitly looks great

[Psi]

I was wondering if anyone knows what this 2nd very wide beam is

Since the laser is labeled as 400mW and is definitly not outputing anything like that at the moment, is it possible i aligned it to a reflection and the 2nd beam is the real one? Maybe i need to realign it to bring that 2nd beam into the center?

[FourDee]

The power on the label always marks a value bigger than the actual CW power

[dave]

You wont get anything like 400mw out of a 3030.

[Psi]

yeah, i was wondering about that.

From my googling NEC3030's seems to output around 30mW.

but 30mW and 400mW are very different, to far apart for it to be the same laser.

It makes me think i must have something different to a NEC3030.

[Diachi]

yeah, i was wondering about that.

From my googling NEC3030's seems to output around 30mW.

but 30mW and 400mW are very different, to far apart for it to be the same laser.

It makes me think i must have something different to a NEC3030.

Sticker powers and actual powers are very different. I had a JDSU 2214 that did ~54mW at 10A and had a sticker on it saying that it was .5W