Classy Old Perkin-Elmer He-Ne

[Eidetic]

Here's one I've been looking for since first seeing an ad for it in a July 1967 issue of Laser Focus. It's the Perkin-Elmer Coleman model 75 He-Ne, made for general applications. This one has a tube that's marked 1974, but the tubes only lasted 1000 hours so the laser itself may be much older. The head is held on the back of the power supply by a single thumbscrew, and has an output of 1mW. This classy little system cost $295 when introduced in the Summer of Love. But look at how it was sent to me via USPS, after specifically asking for plenty of insulation to keep the head especially from contacting the box. No apparent cracks in the tube, the filament glows but nothing happens when I hit the start button.

[absolom7691]

I love that the advert uses Angstroms instead of NM. Awesome find. When you open that there museum of yours to the public, let me know. I am only about 300 miles from you.

[Eidetic]

Anyone interested is certainly welcome to visit them if in the Phoenix area. There are currently >290 on display. If the connection in Chicago works out, about a third will go there for a while but that's a long shot right now.

[Vidal Wolf]

Nice piece of history!

[Photonbeam]

Full 1 milliwatt output! Maybe you can test the tube with a tesla coil?

[142laser]

I bet if yiou had paid more than $50 the seller would have listened about the packing. However it was probably already dead...did the seller claim it lased or "powered on"? Darn, I was hoping for a picture of it working. Send to Evergreen..... Best, Phil

[Eidetic]

I wouldn't send any laser to Evergreen! Just sayin'.

[142laser]

Bob Phil at Evergreen does honest work. Their specialty is Argon not HeNe but he re-gassed an old SP 130B for me and that was over 5 years ago, it had dropped from 0.52 mW to 0.45 mW (ran it today) but I have not touched the windows or mirrors! He has also done HP tubes for Sam and they hold up OK. He did an SP 2020 for us and it came back at 7.5W and lasted a few years. For HeNe El Don is the best but expensive.

[Eidetic]

My experience with their ion laser work in two separate instances was quite different, and there will never be a third.

[142laser]

I think many tubes sent for rebuild are too far gone to do a proper job on (without really high costs) and sometimes this can cause premature failure after rebuild. The ones we sent were low hours and were only bad because of storage without use; they were clean and the cathodes were in good condition. So our results were probably about the best you could expect.

When you take your car to a mechanic for repairs they seldom tell you it is not worth fixing or they would go out of business.....