Impulse buying is the best!

[stanwax]

Pat - as I said I am happy to be corrected by anyone though I would never have beleived it 100% - but as its you then I know its gospel!
Pretty impressive to get 10W even only on occasions from one of these little lasers. How long is the cavity? And what makes it so special to get so much more power from a smaller tube/cavity?

As for the 168 - Well mine certainly rocks - I love it to bits and its mine 'til one of us dies
I converted everyone at the last UK meet who had never seen a decent ion laser in full flight, so they now know and appreciate a 'proper' laser though I know its only a baby to a 171. Im hoping that a few more will see the merits of the 'old school' at the meet in a couple of weeks.
Its the colours that just blow people away - the mix of colour and the shades are so so nice compared to solid state - mind you why am I telling you this?!

Rob

[Laserman532]

Pat - as I said I am happy to be corrected by anyone though I would never have beleived it 100% - but as its you then I know its gospel!
Pretty impressive to get 10W even only on occasions from one of these little lasers. How long is the cavity? And what makes it so special to get so much more power from a smaller tube/cavity?

As for the 168 - Well mine certainly rocks - I love it to bits and its mine 'til one of us dies
I converted everyone at the last UK meet who had never seen a decent ion laser in full flight, so they now know and appreciate a 'proper' laser though I know its only a baby to a 171. Im hoping that a few more will see the merits of the 'old school' at the meet in a couple of weeks.
Its the colours that just blow people away - the mix of colour and the shades are so so nice compared to solid state - mind you why am I telling you this?!

Rob

No problemo. The 168 in my opinion is the greatest ion laser ever manufactured (next to the 164 & 165 ofcourse) The 2000 laser is about the same length of a 168. It is a metal ceramic plasma tube with hard sealed mirrors on the ends. (VERY HEAVY) The series 2000 was the answer to the entertainment industry. Keep in mind that coherent had come out with the I90 and the I70 at that time (for a good time check out the law suites going back and forth back then (early 80's) It was speced at 5 watts but we couldnt ship them unless they were doing at least 7 watts. The plasma was so intense that the mirrors degraded quickly and bla bla bla (I could tell you stories but I would be either sued or killed) so thats all i have to say. I built a laser show that showed the laser running vertical for SP at their trade show booth at CLEO which was a big deal at the time. Attached is the brochure I produced for the series 2000 and 2011 laser at the introduction (if it had a SP logo on it...I was up to my eyeballs in it!)

[dsli_jon]

Coherent 430nm DPSS 30-50mW

Hey Ben - killer score, dude! Pix yet? That blue has got to be sooo amazing...

...and Rob / Pat - well, can't argue with Pat, being an 'SP company-man' and all , Buuut, I do beg to differ, at least in OUR case - Well, I guess, I have to 'qualify' that cause while our SP2K IS an SP2K tube/PSU, it DOES have non-SP German-made WL optics - peaked / tweeked and 'squeeked' (freshly-cleaned brewsters! ), I got 5.1 Watts of VERY NICE WL output at max current of 52.5 amps - (typically run it @ 42-45A, and it still does 4-4.5W (depending on magnet settings - fully adjustable mag, BTW) - can even get nice yellows out of the Kr, if I want, but usually, run it a little more 'balanced' - was pumped to 12% Ar and 88% Kr... It has only left the shop TWICE (on an emergency) - it is a HEAVY sucker, but stable, and I love it as a 'studio' / programming laser...

This is NOT to disagree with the 168 (and 171) accolades - the 164s and 168s are totally awesome little lasers - I sold my 168 Ar in like '94, (needed to buy a new car, and biz was just not 'there' yet...sad, sad day ) but also, they were just a bit un-practical for heavy-travel sho-work - it's just the law of 'probablility' - the more times you ship a glass-tube, the more chances you'll end up having to face 'talking yourself out of 'hari-kari' when your show-laser gets to the venue with a forklift having run it-thru' I-90s, for all the crits, for us, anyway, became the small-frame of choice for the ROAD. I'd still buy-back my 168 if I could, though - just to stare at that beautiful 'eye-cooking' plasma-glo!

...Now, Ben - you gotta post pix of your blue-bombshell, there - I don't wanna get accused of 'thread-jacking', here - this was your 'ride', man - let's see some BLUE, bruthuh! (when ya can, I know - just being a dork...)

peace..
-J

[stanwax]

Jon
the plasma glow. Yes Yes Yes!
I could happily stare at that for hours - its so fickin gorgeous!
See below for my pix

Rob

[dsli_jon]

Jon
the plasma glow. Yes Yes Yes!
I could happily stare at that for hours - its so fickin gorgeous!
See below for my pix

Hey Rob - 'YEEEEEAAAAAAHH Baby! ...Very shagadelic'!!!... (sorry, really bad 'Austin Powers', there... - Great pix, BTW

Just be careful (which I am sure you already know) about staring at those TOO long, cause of all the UV coming off those babies -
ask Pat (Laserman) about it...

peace...
- J

[Laserman532]

yes the 2000 was the one pictured by jon. The 2010 was the one pictured in the ebay aucton. hell I was only off by 10 points in 2000. The laser jon pictured i also dont like. (heavy and electronics very complicated) Robust for sure for shipping, but watts per pound cant compare to a 168, 265ps...Life is about balance. I guess that i am SOOOOOO old school i never liked metal ceramic lasers. The glass tubes to me were art. different strokes for different folks.

rob...staring at the plasma glow ruined my eyes.

[stanwax]

Thanks for the concern guys - I dont mean I literally stare at it for hours - yes I am aware that its unkind - i was just sayin how the plasma is a very beautiful thing. Its not very often that its operated with the cover off, and that isnt for reasons of plasma emission but rather to protect against the electrical death hazard!

Rob

[Laserman532]

Thanks for the concern guys - I dont mean I literally stare at it for hours - yes I am aware that its unkind - i was just sayin how the plasma is a very beautiful thing. Its not very often that its operated with the cover off, and that isnt for reasons of plasma emission but rather to protect against the electrical death hazard!

Rob

Sorry ben for tread jacking i am curious if you do get it running and get good light out of it.

Rob how come your laser is only doing 3.3 watts? BBMM (-17 & -18 optics i believe) you should see about 8 watts. BBSM optics (20-9 & 610-1 optics) should easily give you 5 watts. Sounds like you might need a little fixin there. I do field calls

[stanwax]

I really dont know what optics are in - is there any easy way to id them? When its first on I often get a yellow line in the output which soon fades as the tube warms up - its rarely there after 1 min @18-20A
The laser has got a cambridge Ar/Kr fill tube which was fitted in '96 and as far as I know has done little in the way of hours untill I got my hands on it.
It was refurbed for Laser Magic here in the UK and apparently they did not use it for its intended and sold it on to the guy I bought it from.
I dont run it hard but when I have eased it to 34A 3.3W is what I have acheived. I didnt think this was too bad - considering the spec sheet that Brian from Cambridge provided me shows 4.4W @34A in '96 when the tube was first refurbed. Their spec shows optics of CCLinc fitted during test - does that mean anything? I bought advertsised as a 2W whitelight, after realigning, walking and sorting out a problem with my mains supply at home - fluctuating between 248 & 207VAC depending on the time of day, I mangaged to see 3.3W at 34A with the field down at min. This is only indicated on the power meter on the 265 panel so I dont read it as gospel. One day I will get a thermopile head infront of it and measure properly - lasercheck is a joke for this baby . I relly wanna do this so I have some idea of the accuracy or probable inaccuracy of the panel meter.
The other thing thats in the equation - and you may remember this has popped up from time to time on alt.lasers - is the fact that the previous owner has done a single phase mod to the 265. I run it through an auto transformer to give me 220v - depending on the tapping and the supply volts this sometimes creeps to 225v - I try and keep it as near to 220 as I can. If its down at 215 then it can struggle to acheive the higher tube currents so I dont push it up that far. Though I do like the 265 - its a solid old bugger - Ideally I would like to pick up an aurora 40 - though one for reasonable money is a rare thing on the s/h market.

BTW Pat out of interest were you involved in the development or design of any of these lasers we are talking about here? Im just interested - or rather fascinated by your time at SP.

Rob

[Laserman532]

long tread, short answer- you have a white light, i thought it was an argon only (my bad) your are getting what you should (around 4 watts) with the PS mods you have. Brian is the best BAR NONE for glass plasma tubes. Brian and I go back 25 years at least. Glass pts were at SP when I got there. I was service engineer then applications engineer. Traveled the US servicing ions, installing PT's, Clean and aligns, and installing pico second and stabilized ring dye lasers. As apps eng i was given the new products coming out of engineering to test drive, and suggest mods and improvements, some were accepted some rejected...thats big business. I also ran the demo lab, a beautiful facility with a 4 x 10 floating newport table and i would set up different systems for potential clients to come look see and buy (hopefully). Mode locked- sync pump- cavity dump- dye lasers were my specialty.

BEN- I looked at the blue auction...i'm concerned- The winner "Cheap optics" is no longer a registered user is that you?