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Thread: question from clandestiny

  1. #11
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    I agree with yadda. traditionally people use hene lasers for aligning bigger lasers. When I needed to do my SP168 I tried with a small green module and got nowhere fast. Beam issues were one problem in that it wasnt good enough and kept grazing off the bore and making it impossible to judge what was going on but also the small size of the package means that trying to get it in line with the bore in 3 dimensions x, y & fore/aft tilt was very difficult.
    I tried it through laziness cos i didnt wanna build a jig for a hene i just wanted to get the sp168 working. This was false economy and so I set about building a very simple means of adjusting the position of my hene in 3 dimensions.
    I had a baseboard to which i screwed bits stolen from computer CPU fans that contained small ball bearings. The outer race was fixed to the base and into the inner race I put a piece of studding which ran through captive nuts attached to the laser. There were 2 of these at the front and one in the centre at the back.
    This worked a treat and after systematically going through the alignment procedure the laser was up and running within half an hour.
    Following my recent move the SP168 would not lase again and as alignment could have been the only problem I dug out the board and fittings and quickly got the beast working.
    I have got some pic of the assembly - I will dig em out and put them in a gallery when I find them for future refrence.

    Rob

  2. #12
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    Jan 2006
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    Charleston, SC
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    Quote Originally Posted by clandestiny View Post
    Cross-bencher and myself had tossed around the idea of another flem meet, I think that we could sync our calenders and possibly put that together.
    Hi Paul!

    Yeah, I need to get going on that idea. What month looks best for you? April? May? I can work around your schedule...
    The arial beam that we where referring to as the green/white washed out effect was actually the waste beam off the pcaom. The colors they needed for the graphic where taken to the screen,- we where seeing the rejected beam dumped through a second set of scanners for arial effect over the crowd.
    It might have looked that way from the weak beams, but no. They really *did* have a second Coherent purelight laser with its own scanners positioned at the rear of the stage that was doing the audience beams. The first Coherent purelight laser was right at the front of the stage and was aimed backwards at the screens to do GFX. They were dumping the waste beam from the PCAOM's on *both* projectors. (They actually showed us the beam dump on the second projector because the cover was off. You couldn't see the dump on the first one though.) Dave mentioned something about trying to modify the projectors to do *something* with those waste beams, but then he lamented that they never have time to tinker with the stuff because they're always too busy touring.

    Ryan later admitted to us that he felt he needed more than 4 watts of whitelight for the areal show, and that upgrading the lasers was next on his agenda. Not sure when though.

    I might give you a call this weekend... I'll be in the area again. (More yard work at my Mom's place.) Maybe we can chat about FLEM mark II!

    Oh yeah, and Re: using a 100 mw lasever vs a 14 (ish) mw hene to align a laser... Have a look at these two pictures in my gallery. They show the beam spot of three of my lasers measured at just over 100 ft away. Notice that the HeNe has the WORST divergence of the three. The Argon is a little better, but the Lasever DPSS green is really quite good. So if beam quality and divergence is important, then the Lasever unit wins hands down.

    Adam
    Last edited by buffo; 03-16-2007 at 01:46.

  3. #13
    clandestiny's Avatar
    clandestiny is offline Eleventy-Billion Watt Ar/Kr >:)
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    I have always used a he-ne for cavity alignment. I have some beam tables
    that i am going to re-work and for alignment purposes on those, I thought
    i would try a green module, -in lieu of a larger ion unit. The he ne doesn't cut it there. If it happens to be that the beam of the module doesn't suffice
    for cavity alignment so be it. I'll still use the he ne. Caulk it up to experimentation.
    go big or go home

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buffo View Post
    Dave mentioned something about trying to modify the projectors to do *something* with those waste beams, but then he lamented that they never have time to tinker with the stuff because they're always too busy touring.
    You will need a recombiner for this.. We are just waiting on one.. About $300 from memory from NEOS
    KVANT Australian projector sales
    https://www.facebook.com/kvantaus/

    Lasershowparts- Laser Parts at great prices
    https://www.facebook.com/lasershowparts/

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by yaddatrance View Post
    Curious, why green and why high power? If I were looking for a cavity alignment laser I'd look for beam width and divergence. In that respect none of the "cheap" lasers would suffice without picking the best from a bunch.

    That said, the NLC 150mW and the lasever 100mW have very nice beams, through neither are as tight as a hene... If I was working on a larger tube like the 171 or Sabre, then neither laser would suffice as the beams wide enough that even after alignment, once your OC is back ok you'd still have to rock the head to find the sweetspot. The HeNe has a tight enough beam that I usually get close enough to a lasing beam so I just have to walk it home using the screws.

    [edit] If spec has 1mm 1mr beams, then that's perfect!
    I'll second the suggestion to use a He-Ne laser for aligning large Ion lasers but If you insist on getting a DPSS laser then Lasever can sell to you directly. I have a blue Lasever 100 mW unit and am happy with it so far. I bought it directly from Lasever . Why buy from a distributor when you can buy direct from the manufacturer and save more $$$.
    Rick
    Profile Redacted by Admin @ 04.24.2010

  6. #16
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    May 2006
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    Native Floridian
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    Why buy from a distributor when you can buy direct from the manufacturer and save more $$$.
    Actually, I tried that. I have 3 Lasever units. I initially emailed Lasever directly for a quote and emailed my distributor for a quote. I was surprised that my distributors quote was quite a bit less than the quote from Lasever. I also went through my distributor for a replacement when one of the lasers was not performing to spec, I had a replacement in 10 days.

    David

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