Another Old Soviet Educational Laser

Here's one that has a unique feature. The 1982 LG-209 He-Ne includes a beam blocker that pulls off the front end by use of an antenna type extender. There's also a clear acrylic cover inside to allow safe observation of the laser's guts while in operation. The plasma tube was cracked so I didn't expect it to make the journey from Ukraine, and it didn't. I suppose I should've asked the seller to remove it for shipment, but that's hindsight. This laser is quite different than the 1980 LG-209 already in the collection. I'm so happy the Russians decided to include the dates on the lasers they made. Still, it's weird to see such different lasers with the same model numbers.

Attachment 55571Attachment 55572Attachment 55573

What a strange design. Dam shame the tube was broken.

Ever hear of GOST? I bet some of the LG model numbers are ex Soviet "State Committee" designs adopted for production. As JSC Plasma and the company in Ukraine have a few overlapping models. So some GOST standards specified exact hardware, others specified the functionality and production quality and it was up to competing design bureaus and manufacturing plants to meet the goal however they could.

I've seen pictures of an ophthalmic Argon system that basically was a Nidek clone, right down to a very similar tube to the SP glass Argon. I'm not calling it a copy, as we all know that making the plasma tube was not that easy a task, even if you had one to look at.

A technical standard would often include sample or example plans for the device as a state standard. If you made it to the plans you called it a LG-xxx model, if you modified it, you either applied for another model number or re-labeled it.

Russian

: ГОСТ , Is now Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification (EASC)

, See WIKI for a really good explanation.

Steve

Very nice found! I still have a similar LGN-109 laser which is still operational. I use it for alignment of other lasers. And yes, model numbers sometimes overlap and can belong to completely different laser systems. Like, LGI-201 can be both a small RF pumped He-Ne laser and a large CVL system.

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I've seen pictures of an ophthalmic Argon system that basically was a Nidek clone, right down to a very similar tube to the SP glass Argon.

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Could you share it with me? I'm very interested in information about these as I couldn't find anything in the russian segment of the Internet. We have in Odessa here the Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy, which had a good laser lab that developed eye treating systems including Argon ones, but by the moment of my visit there all of them were scrapped and replaced with DPSS and OPSL systems.

I'm getting there:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...arWuxFbOhyEhrw

From what I'm finding:

Names: Balyaeva, Saprykin, Filimonva Dates 1973, 1973
OK-1 was the ruby ,model …

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https://books.google.com/books/conte...GgN8v2JKHSPTQR

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Laser Applications in Medicine and Biology, Volume 3


Covers early Russian/Soviet Argon medical devices.

Steve

Thanks a lot! The laser head #3 at the picture looks very similar to LGI-40 Xenon laser. Possibly its case and frame was used for more than one laser, except LGI-40.

Edit after viewing the book: right, this is exactly the LGI-40 Xe laser.