RCA Discovision Hene Assembly

[Mr.Coffee]

Hey guys. This is one of those "guess what I forgot I had in a box somewhere?" threads.

I have the laser assembly out of an old RCA Discovision laserdisc player. I was wondering, which parts would come in handy for a knife-edge 445 setup?

The laser worked when I took it out of the projector. As a matter of fact, everything on the beam table worked, we couldn't figure out why the player didn't work, as it seemed fully functional. Perhaps just out of tune.

Anyway, take a gander at the pictures, and let me know what's what.

A few people have first rites on the HeNe, but if they don't want it, that will be up for grabs later on.

[DanBarlow]

You have the XY (fine tracking) galvos still in place, center bottom. They are 8 ohm (speaker compatible) and while not exactly high speed they are great for spiros and lissajous patterns and random changing sine wave abstracts. I believe it's possible to add capacitive feedback to them but I haven't tried it with mine yet. They used optical feedback using the sensor with the blue and red wires looking at two "extra" diffracted beams bouncing off the laserdisc track which were generated by the first optic after the two 45 degree bounce mirrors. Put that optic in a rotating mount for fun.

The next thing after the extra beam optic is a PBS, there should be a waveplate in there somewhere too. The coatings work fine with red diodes, not at all for green or blue. :-(

[Doc]

The mirrors appear to be coated for 632 and they are round so not much use for knife duty.