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Thread: Old Bausch & Lomb He-Ne Nugget

  1. #1
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    Default Old Bausch & Lomb He-Ne Nugget

    Today's addition to the Vintage Laser Archive is this wonderful old He-Ne from Bausch & Lomb. It was part of a system developed by Dr. H.A. Knoll of B&L called a "laser refractor". Essentially, this was the first system sold to use laser speckle to determine near or far-sightedness. A figure found with its "New Product" introduction in the March 1966 issue of Laser Focus is below.

    This is an RF excited He-Ne with the mirrors attached to the ends of the tube. The tube is broken at one end, so I taped it back in place. I love the microscope style base! The tag shown below is on the back of the power supply, which was made by Eico.

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  2. #2
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    Very cool! Gotta love that chunky OC sealed to that tiny bore!

  3. #3
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    Nice find! I had a Bausch & Lomb hene with a housing that featured a sheetmetal cover and wooden base and ends (mahogany I think). Dig the automotive coil!
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  4. #4
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    A Woody! I have a few of those in the archive. The earlier ones had a brace in the center of the tube that included adjusters to bend the tube into alignment.

    Here's a pic of the Type II power supply I believe to be the replacement for the one shown above.

    By the way, I've changed the setting on my Google Site to allow anyone with the link to see it. Please excuse the crudeness of the site. I made it primarily to be a place online to document the archive until a proper web site could be made. Just haven't gotten to it. The pics here are much bigger, but here's the link: https://sites.google.com/site/vintagelaserarchive/

    Click image for larger version. 

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  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eidetic View Post
    A Woody! I have a few of those in the archive.
    Ha... I knew you wood! Fantastic collection. I could spend days looking at this stuff. I spotted a grey era SP270 - gotta be one of the first. Thanks for preserving these historic instruments!
    Do you collect old laser literature? I might have a donation or two.

  6. #6
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    I love finding old literature about lasers! The most recent piece added is a catalog from Raytheon describing their 1962 microwave and laser products. The pics below show the laser heads and power supplies. Notice their model LHM1, which was used to hit the moon for the first time earlier that year. Also shown with the power supplies is their RF excited He-Ne with an IR output.

    This catalog was printed in August 1962, the same month as Perkin-Elmer Spectra-Physics introduced the first He-Ne with a visible beam output. I didn't want to scan the other pages because I didn't want to damage the binding of the catalog.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by Eidetic; 05-21-2017 at 09:20.

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