Full Color 3.5 Watt Argon/Krypton Laser

[cruch]

I found this on ebay
Is it worth it??

[Misebeam]

Looks nice, but 220 single phase @ 3.5 watts is that right?,and what about water cooling? I kinda had my eye on it...

[cruch]

water cooled yes! I really want air cooled instead also the 220V is just fine by me. (use 220v in norway)

[mliptack]

ooooh.... Maybe I'll just drop out of college, the money I save, will pay for it. haha. Kidding

[andy_con]

wow i would so love that

[buffo]

I didn't know that anyone made a single phase power supply that would power a 3.5 whitelight tube. (You gotta figure that 3.5 watts in a mixed gas tube is roughly equal in size to a 6 watt tube with a pure argon fill, so we're talking about a tube as big as a Lexel 95...) That's beyond the abilities of even the Aurora PSU. And OMG! 60 amps! Gonna need some fat wire to power it.

But it does look very nice, and if it's really making 3.5 watts, then it would be a very nice system indeed. Water cooling is a pain, but you're not going to get more than a watt or two out of an ion laser without going to some sort of water cooled tube.

Figure that PCAOM is worth a grand minimum. (Talking e-bay prices here, not retail; retail is even higher) Add another grand or so for the scan head. That leaves you with a price of around 5 grand for the laser, PSU, and associated cables. If it's only got 20 hours on it, then that's a deal.

Still, you're talking about 7 grand... You could build a nice DPSS projector with 7 grand, and you wouldn't need to worry about water cooling OR dragging around #4 gauge wire to power the damn thing. (Talk to Stanwax (Rob) about the joys of hauling a heavy ion laser around.) Then there's the cost of the electricity to run it!

But you probably wouldn't be able to get as much blue out of a $7000 DPSS rig as you would with this thing... (Solid state blue is just too damn expensive.) And with an 8 channel PCAOM, you'll get a lot of colors that you've never seen out of a DPSS rig. (647 nm red, 456 nm blue, 488 nm blue, 514 nm green, plus 4 more lines of your choice!)

Hell, if you're thinking about making the jump into ion lasers, this is as good a system as any... (At least it's all turn-key!) But I'd make *damn* sure everything works first, and be sure to get a warranty against DOA!

Adam