Hey Cats -
After reading Mixedgas' excellent show-augmenting suggestions http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...82&postcount=4 thought I'd take just a moment to back him up on that and simultaneously throw my 2¢ in about our experiences with machita vs machados -
No doubt - machitas make the finest spreads around, but we do have to say '3 cheers' for machado - very similar results, and bewteen $4-500. CHEAPER - the slight differences are really only more-noticeable (IN use - of course, WE all notice the diffs! with single-line shots (ie- 532'ers) vs multiline (ie- WLs), and we've used them with WLs up to 16+W and Green (KTP) up to 45+W, with NO damage... (OF COURSE you have to make sure you are shooting thru the NON-grated side of the glass in such cases! In any case, we hereby give '2 Beams Up' for the machado...
http://www.creativelaser.de/hardware/grating_page_frame/maschado/maschado.htm in case any newcomers need to know/buy! - oh, here are some comparative shots of the machado in action at 3W, 8W, 20W and 40W respectively, for your viewing pleasure...(ps the 40W was beam chasing during the shot, so parts of the 180 are more 'missing' due to the time-exposure...
- j