Ask PL: At what point did you realize that you wanted to get involved with laasers?

[dkumpula]

Hey... I was a wierd kid.

I think that statement is a given for almost all of us, Brad!



My interest started in the late 70's when I was a kid having fun with LEDs. (They were great fun to incorporate into my home-made space ships.)

My first job after graduating from university was a programmer / tax analyst. While writing (and reading) code during 16 hour workdays, I started day-dreaming about creating a computer controlled light and laser show environment. Fast forward about 20 years and 8 implementations and I've made it this far:



-David

[buffo]

I read a book in 7th grade called "The Story of the Laser" by John M. Carrol. Never could shake the bug after that. (FWIW, this was back in 1978)

Adam

[Bradfo69]

I just remembered too that in high school, I built lights for friends of mine that had a band. Long boxes made of wood with 5 ceramic bulb holders with colored floodlight bulbs in each one. We made stands from some threaded 2" iron pipe and a wooden bases. I made "snakes" from 5 - 50 foot runs of 18 guage brown lamp cord from Radio Shack, all (scotch) taped together for each side, left and right. The controller was also a "non - UL approved" mess of regular wall type rocker switches from a hardware store, power switch and terminal strips from Radio Shack built into a plywood box spray painted black. We got sparks out of it from time to time.

So yeah... I guess I have been "into lighting" all my life.

[Stuka]

Right after I saw ELO on their "Out of the Blue" tour in 1978.
First time I saw real lasers in action - awesome!!!

Bought the Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw shortly there after...

[Eidetic]

The jacket cover picture on "The Story of the Laser" shows a Perkin-Elmer Spectra-Physics model 111 in use. It's about the only reference to that laser I've found. Published in 1964, it has pics of many old lasers. Here's the cover pic from inside the book:

[Galvonaut]

Great stories

For me, an interest in electronics, high voltage, radio and photography, along with ill health (it's not all bad) brought me down this road.

A friend was running a nightclub locally and he asked me to fix a load of lighting - I think the place had been struck by lightning as there were loads of dead transformers and bridge rectifiers. There were no lasers though - so I built one!

Now I'm beginning to take this hobby towards a business. A slow process when funds are limited but I'm learning loads thanks to everyone at PL

[buffo]

The jacket cover picture on "The Story of the Laser" shows a Perkin-Elmer Spectra-Physics model 111 in use. It's about the only reference to that laser I've found. Published in 1964, it has pics of many old lasers. Here's the cover pic from inside the book:

Yup. I remember that picture well.

I finally broke down and ordered a used copy of the book a few years ago on Amazon. Now it sits on my computer desk in a place of honor!

Adam

[edison]

In my case it was curiosity. in the 90's i found a Kit from a german company called ELV. You could buy a 2mw red with highvoltage powersupply incl scanset and software to control it with a dac that you could install in 486 computer. I had a newspaper job that helped me save the money for it. When i played with it i found out that was the worst thing you could buy since it didn,t work at all. Then i found a book written by Dirk Baur how you could build your own dac and you could download the software to control it. The scanners where steppermotors with 1 coil on a fixed 5v DC. I never got real good results out of the scanners though. Also big power and good scanners where totally out of my reach because i didn,t earn enough money back then. That was arround 1992. After my trip in 2007 to New zealand i sat down one night and did some googling and found PL. I was stunned about what was available in therms of scanners , laserdiodes and other laserprojector parts. Things where dirt cheap and so i quickly started to build my own system. Because i,m an electricien by trade and wired allot of control cabinets i used that experiance and build by first projector. I started with a 600mw green laserwave and a 650mw/642 kvant that i bought from Phil pritzler. I liked the building and developing side of it but also being able to make my own decisions instead of having a boss that makes the decisions for you. Most bosses don,t listen to their workstaff in how they could save money and improve things. We also wanted a dog so ideally someone should stay home and take care if him. So i went from being an electricien to full time doing laser development and building. Because building projectors requires modules i asked Pelosh from Kvant on prolight if he was willing to help me out. He was extremely arrogant and said "go away your just a hobbyist and dropped a retail pricelist in my hands. From that point on i focussed totally on the development of modules. I started with selling Kits to finance the development proces since that is costing. With the kits you could save half on buying a ready made module but i stopped selling them since its never cheap enough. Second the lack of skills of others arround here was also a reason. I have repaired kits for nothing and cost me a shitload of time and money. I was amazed so see the soldering from some kits that i got back for repair!!!!!

I must admit that i underestimated the developing proces but during the time i met some interesting people. I have met some great people but also some real assholes. In the beginning ( 4 years ago) Pl was great, lots of people with lots of different projects. That went down to how can i get info to get the most of power for the cheapest amount of money (even though they only use it in their bedroom) without using the search button.

Don,t get me wrong, PL is a great place to meet people with the same interest, find all the info you need about how to build your own quallity but personally i think has degraded over time allong with the market. Occasionally there is someone that post a thread about an interesting project like a projector, dac or module development but those become scarce. The "thinking out of the box" days are over and they are not coming back......... I miss the totally self-build projectors from skratch with no machines involved other then a battery drill , a pile of allumium and some hand tools.


But to end this with a positive vibe, overal PL is a great forum that allows people that are interested in lasers to find really everything there is to know and where you can meet people that are just excited about lasershows and the technology behind it. It gave me all the help and info what i needed to adchieve my goal, having my own modules and projectors.

[Jem]

Originally, Laserium at the London Planetarium in the seventies. Wind the clock on to around 2000 ish, introduce Southern Comfort and eBay and the rest as they say is history

[TechJunkie]

but also some real assholes.

I resemble that remark...Nyuck