[Laser] Are we still there

[chris451]

My collection of lasers:

I have several of 4.5 volt 3 button cell keychain lasers, with hologram
diffusers.
Useful for finding small parts on the floor, sometimes point with them, and
mainly play with them
to find wires and bounce off car reflectors at night. Make sure you have
good batteries in them.
1-he-ne 1mw unit (not much more light then the LED units but draws 6-12
watts instead of 300 mW and
is more power (maybe much more stable) then the LED version.

I've been shopping for a 100mw-500mw 0.9 to 1.3uM IR laserdiode, maybe I can
find one for less than $100 or so.
I also have access to high power pulsed lasers at work, for evaporating
metals and substrate materials.
I use a 12KW pulsed 532nM at work to cut through microcircuits, but its so
much power you have to be careful and
not turn it up to far to prevent overmelting which causes conducton paths.
It cuts gold and Gaas very well, and is useful for
removing any metal residue from ceramic circuits where it may get smeared.
At 100x it actually fogged the high  power
microscope  lens with either evaporated materials or lens damage. Whats cool
about it is you can watch the results
through a filtered microscope, and tweak the size and power of the laser, to
anywhere from
no effect, to slight discoloration, to slight ablation, to max  power where
a chunk will instantly dissappear out of the workpiece.
We had a CO2 IR laser at work for cutting ceramic many years ago but I think
it had reliability issues or too little useage,
so it got sold off. It required a co2 tank, various pumps, and a saftey
room,
We have a UV dye laser that uses a dye cell to convert the wavelength from
UV to 532 nM. Its always a problem because
the dye uses alcohol suspension and usually needs topping off, or
replacement before it is used.
Huh I still don't think I am much of a laser buff other than I like to use
them and collect a few of them,
to use them for communication I think the real issue is aiming them, having
a stable platform, and some kind of aiming system
such as a crosshair telescope, gyro stabilizer, etc. maybe could use the
little voice coil aiming system on a cd player for fine point.
Not sure how well a 1-3 mw laser would carry for a number of miles when used
as a beacon or communications device.
So many variables are unknown why not just try it and measure the results.
Dont think I've seen much on this laser list just  picked it from the list
of interesting topics.
By the way heat works really well on epoxy or solvent based glues, 150 ' c
is enough to soften most epoxies.
For optical reasons maybe its not epoxy, most epoxy isnt very clear. If I
were doing that I'd leave it in the 'voice coil' assembly


----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Burrows" <r.burrows@blueyonder.co.uk>
To: <laser@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 1:57 AM
Subject: RE: [Laser] Are we still there


> For info I 've found that CD lazer Diode rectangilar flat lens is stuck on
> and usually comes away with screwdriver and local heating of glue with
> soldering iron..
>                            73


Thanks for the tip I have a couple of dead cd players to pull those out
of...