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Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
It all started when I saw someone with about 50 ssy-1's for sale on ebay, and I decided to buy one for myself as a graduation gift While I was at it I picked up a box of 4 of the pfn's
About 3 days later when they arrived I completely took apart the laser (and found it to look brand new), and separated the parts of the pfn. Then I started looking for some goggles... I e-mailed spectronica, and waited a week with no response. Then I was looking through a drawer of 'junk' my dad had brought home (when Ortel closed it's new facility they had a surplus of free stuff they gave to the employees) and to my utter bliss found not one but 2 pairs of od5 780-1080 goggles That was about noon sunday... Then I had other stuff to do, so at about 8pm I started building a supply for the laser... Just a simple voltage tripler of 1n4007's and 3ufd/400v poly caps, powered off my 120v-240v isolation transformer plugged into a variac, with a 80k bleeder, and a .063ufd cap with a mid sized trigger transformer and a radioshack special red button. I hot glued the caps in their sides to make makeshift legs and made a relatively nice power supply for the laser. Then after figuring out which side of the laser was the output side, I hot glued a focusing lens out of a junked green laser pointer on the end of it. Then I vaporised some toner, and realised that if I gave it more than about 700v I got air ionisation So I played around with that and at about midnight I sent to sleep.
Then I got up a 6:15am this morning to go to my uber l337 internship and thought about the laser all day, until about 5 when I got home to play with it. Then I managed to get some pics to show you guys... All of the shots are at about 750v (10J) made with a 3 second exposure with a weak flash for background along with a little ambient light (I need to see too...) Except that last one...
beam into mid air, only the internal IR filter in the camera, you can't really blame the camera for having problems... the power density in that spot is about 10^12w/cm^2
Beam into mid air, looking thought a pair of od5 googlies
heat sink just past the focal point
heat sink even closer to the focal point, this time the air spark is just at the end of the cloud of aluminum vapor making the plume look really nice and long
This one is way before the focal point, the anodising didn't get completely vaporised just blasted off
this one is before the focal point... About a 1mm spot size
This is a ball of black powder being shot (it lasted about 20 shots and didn't ignite
This is a 555. You can see the shape of the beam very well here
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
The laser is just an unmodified SSY-1 that you get off ebay... It has a 50mmx4mm rod YAG rod, a passive q-switch... next to a 1.4" strobe tube, all in a permanently aligned chassis (all of the important spots have been very carefully ground so you are guaranteed perfect alignment ) with 3 wires hanging out... The main power supply is a 36ufd/900v polly cap, with a .03uH inductor in series with the tube (the guts of a PFN-1 unti, also off ebay), to which I added a charger (voltage tripler off a 240v isolation xformer) and a trigger circuit (.063ufd cap and a trigger coil out of a mid sized strobe light) which isn't too reliable (usually takes 2 hits of the switch to make it go, but 90% of the time it will go on the second hit )
I personally am not a holography person, there isn't enough that explodes
My plan is to mount it vertical pointing down pointing at an x/y optical stage with a piar of Newport 850g actuators ( they are supposed to have sum-micrometer precision ) hooked up to my controller which will be on a gpib buss to a computer which will be probably be running labview (should make things easier to get things going quick) and controlling the laser (I need to make some sort of pic controller for the laser that controls charging of a little smps charger and has things like overtemp shutdown) to make a little laser etcher I can probably go 1shots/second at 10J, each spot making a hole about .5mm in diameter (or larger if I defucus it, I can etch a shadow about 3mm) which would let me go about an .1 inch a minute of laser etching. Or if I need to go fast I can handle up to about an inch a minute.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062
Has anyone tried using a laser to decapsulate IC's? pulsed laser with the back of the test chip peltier cooled might work. one possible use would be to examine delicate chips without doing irreparable damage to the die.
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
There is a shot of me blasting away at a 555, and while it might be possible to do it it would take forever with a ssy-1 (although I am thinking of setting it up for a 15j shot once a second for like 10 hours to see how far in I make it....)
Although I worry that the top of the die might not be reflective enough to save it...
Registered Member #119
Joined: Fri Feb 10 2006, 06:26AM
Location: USA
Posts: 114
I got my SSY-1 to work today using the PFN and trigger board it came with. I haven't seen a schematic for the trigger board(only the PFN), so if anyone wants it, I'll post a link. I'm not quite sure if the connections on the board to the transistor and SCR are right, so I'd apprecieate someone to look at it anyway or to direct me to some place that it was and I missed it. So far its still been fun shooting paint off of things. I am trying to figure out if I can pop a balloon. I tried a purple colored balloon(thinking it might absorb IR better, but I really have no idea), and it just made little black marks. In Sam's laser FAQ a possibly smaller YAG laser is mentioned that they say does it, so I am pretty sure mine can. Next I am going to try to work out something to focus it. How does one tell how to focus it considering I don't know the spread, its pulsed, and I can't see it(and I probably won't know anything about the random lense I scrapped either)? I also put a spare KTP crystal in front of it which was pretty cool. At first I used some laser goggles that didn't protect against doubled Nd:YAG but then used a pair that could. I couldn't really see the laser with the second pair which was really boring, so I switched back to the first pair. However, I found it quite interesting since I could see where the flashlamp light went in relation to the green light(which appeared as no beam to me with the green blocking goggles on). Hopefully I'll find a way to take pictures of this stuff.
Registered Member #10
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424
McFluffin wrote ...
... Next I am going to try to work out something to focus it. How does one tell how to focus it considering I don't know the spread, its pulsed, and I can't see it(and I probably won't know anything about the random lense I scrapped either)?..
I recently got one of these with the Q switch separate. I have only just started using it but I have taped a small laser pointer assembly onto the non output end and it shows up the focus fine. This works because the full mirror seems transparent to visible wavelengths.
Does anyone have a photo of where the Q switch normally sits?
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
the ssy-1 can pop a baloon no problem, you just need to focus it. I actually managed to vaporise a hole in an aluminum can after about 50 shots
As to focusing it, just shine a normal laser down the hr end, and viola visable cw beam. The output from the laser is a farily well colminated beam btw.
I could post a pic of where the q-switch goes, but it should be pretty easy to find the hole for it... It is in the thicker of the 2 brown plastic blocks that support the Nd:YAG rod.
All of my ktp's are attached to a vandate, so I am scared to fire the ssy-1 at it... But it seems pretty happy being fed by the 2w 808nm fiber coupled pump diode I just picked up for $100 on ebay I am getting ~150ua using the green led power meter; so considerably over 100mw
Registered Member #10
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424
I didn't realise that you had to remove the YAG/flashlamp assembly to install the Q switch lens, but after that was done it was easy. It didn't work at first so tried a few configurations until I realised I hadn't given it enough power, then it gave half inch flares when focused on black plastic. No air ionisation though so I upped the power eventually putting 100j (250uF 900V) in whereupon the flash shattered I wasn't using a PFN ie the extra inductor so the pulses were probably too long to give air ionisation. Unfortunately, the only eBay seller selling complete units or separate PFN's wouldn't sell outside the USA. Well it is military technology... Sadly, I hadn't taken any photos. Nevertheless, I have a better feel for a YAG laser and still have the rod, optics and Q switch. I have much bigger laser flashlamps and another YAG rod somewhere and I still have my YAG ophthalmic laser to work on.
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SSY-1 Laser Success
That was about noon sunday... Then I had other stuff to do, so at about 8pm I started building a supply for the laser... Just a simple voltage tripler of 1n4007's and 3ufd/400v poly caps, powered off my 120v-240v isolation transformer plugged into a variac, with a 80k bleeder, and a .063ufd cap with a mid sized trigger transformer and a radioshack special red button. I hot glued the caps in their sides to make makeshift legs and made a relatively nice power supply for the laser. Then after figuring out which side of the laser was the output side, I hot glued a focusing lens out of a junked green laser pointer on the end of it. Then I vaporised some toner, and realised that if I gave it more than about 700v I got air ionisation 
So I played around with that and at about midnight I sent to sleep.
) with 3 wires hanging out... The main power supply is a 36ufd/900v polly cap, with a .03uH inductor in series with the tube (the guts of a PFN-1 unti, also off ebay), to which I added a charger (voltage tripler off a 240v isolation xformer) and a trigger circuit (.063ufd cap and a trigger coil out of a mid sized strobe light) which isn't too reliable (usually takes 2 hits of the switch to make it go, but 90% of the time it will go on the second hit 
)
I can probably go 1shots/second at 10J, each spot making a hole about .5mm in diameter (or larger if I defucus it, I can etch a shadow about 3mm) which would let me go about an .1 inch a minute of laser etching. Or if I need to go fast I can handle up to about an inch a minute. 
