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SSY Laser

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Will1234

Wed Jul 11 2007, 03:31AM

Registered Member #846 Joined: Tue Jun 19 2007, 08:04PM
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Posts: 40

Sorry for being away so long, real life calls..... Yes, I got it firing! I have a pile of plastic and glass lenses I have kept out of everything I could salvage them from before trashing broken or burned out stuff. I'm sure I can find one with a short focal length. Again, I really appreciate you hanging in there with me as I fumbled through everything.

Will1234

Fri Jul 13 2007, 02:17AM

Registered Member #846 Joined: Tue Jun 19 2007, 08:04PM
Location:
Posts: 40

I canabalized an old golf range finder and got the lenses out of it and saw the cool little plasma ball for the first time.

How hot do you think the center of that little ball is??

Dr. Shark

Fri Jul 13 2007, 09:38AM

Registered Member #75 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 09:30AM
Location: Montana, USA
Posts: 711

I'll have a shot at calculating the temperature.
Say you are dumping 50mJ into a volume of 100um cubed. The Constant Volume Specific Heat of air is something like 800 J/kgÂ·K and we are dealing with about 10^-12kg of air. This suggests T=60MK (million Kelvin). Of course this is ignoring the energy spend in ionizing the gas, and the focussing volume might be optimisitc, but you get the idea. Incidentially this is almost exactly the ignition temperature for Deutreium-Tritium fusion, which has infact been achived with pulsed YAG lasers.
Well, looks like I am about 3 orders of magnitude off then, but you might be close to the 1 million Kelvin barrier!

PS:
I dont want to sound like an ass, an infact we are glad to have you on the board (far to few laser people here IMO), but please consider the rules about double posting, i.e. editing your previous post rather than double posting. Some mods are rather strict about this.

PPS:
Glad you got your laser is working so well, what are your plans now? I hear some people have been pushing the energy output of the SSY to burn holes through razor blades. Or you could get the crystal from a green laser pointer and frequecy-double your laser.

...

Fri Jul 13 2007, 02:36PM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

If you want to push the power, you really need to remove the passive q-switch, as it won't take shots with >20j input power. The flash tube explodes at a little over 200j.

Dr. Shark

Fri Jul 13 2007, 02:48PM

Registered Member #75 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 09:30AM
Location: Montana, USA
Posts: 711

What kind of q-switch does the SSY have? I have a russian rangefinder laser that uses a rotating prism and I though that all rangefinders are constructed like that. But since you say it is passive, I guess it is either a dye cell or rather some acetate paper soaked with bleaching dye?

EEYORE

Fri Jul 13 2007, 04:23PM

Registered Member #99 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:10PM
Location: florida, usa
Posts: 637

joe wrote ...

What kind of q-switch does the SSY have? I have a russian rangefinder laser that uses a rotating prism and I though that all rangefinders are constructed like that. But since you say it is passive, I guess it is either a dye cell or rather some acetate paper soaked with bleaching dye?

Its a dye cell...Ive pushed mine and had no trouble with the q-switch failing. Id remove it just to be safe though if I got another one of these...
Matt

Will1234

Sat Jul 14 2007, 08:52PM

Registered Member #846 Joined: Tue Jun 19 2007, 08:04PM
Location:
Posts: 40

Is there anything I need to be mindful of when removing the Q-Switch? Alignment of anything? Etc. Is there an assembly diagram that may help? I just want to make certain that I don't destroy anything while poking around....

W

MikeT1982

Sat Jul 14 2007, 10:09PM

Registered Member #621 Joined: Sun Apr 01 2007, 12:37AM
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Posts: 119

Is this a SSY1 YAG, some guy on ebay is selling these.

Will1234

Sun Jul 15 2007, 01:51AM

Registered Member #846 Joined: Tue Jun 19 2007, 08:04PM
Location:
Posts: 40

Yes, that is the flash tube, rod, and Q-Switch. You can usually find them around the net for less than they go for on eBay most of the time.

...

Sun Jul 15 2007, 04:49AM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

The ones sold by junktronics are usually WAY over priced (heck, they are available elsewhere on ebay for about $100 bin) , I have no idea why...

In any case, to remove the q-switch you need to remove the 4 #2 screws that hold the rod/flashlamp the the frame, then the philips screw that holds in the rod, and preferably remove the small white threaded insert that holds in the flashlamp. Set all of the components in a clean/dry/soft/lint-free/etc piece of cloth, and whatever you do don't touch the yag rod. Then you need to use a small drill bit, knife, etc to remove the glue from the 2 holes around the q-switch, and then cut around it. Then you carefully need to coax it out, I find it works best to take a rod a bit smaller than the yag rod, put something soft (few layers of lens tissue works fine) and insert it where the yag rod goes, as to push the q-switch out. It can take a bit of force, you may have to gently tap on the rod to get it out. Then reassemble in reverse order of how you took it out. Most of the parts just fit back together (no alignment necessary), but there is quite a bit of slop in the screws holding the rod/flashlamp assembly in the optics frame--try to center it the best you can. The final alignment is best done by shooting at a piece of paper wit black toner on it (makeshift carbon paper), at low enough power that it doesn't fully vaporise all of the toner off. Just tweak the position to get a nice round spot. If you see lines running thought it that look suspiciously like a fingerprint, that means you touched one of the optical surfaces--so you need to rip it apart, find the offending surface, and clean it. Make sure to use proper optics cleaning techniques...

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