Another epic teardown begins....

[mikeselectricstuff]

Leica TCS SP2 Laser Scanning Spectral Confocal Microscope Part 1

[BravoV]

Great toy Mike, looking forward to watch the whole teardown. 

[AF6LJ]

This is going to be Good

[mikeselectricstuff]

Part 2

[BravoV]

Feeling sad seeing that solid state diode went poof. 

Thanks Mike ! 

[RobertGogol]

Very interesting teardown, thank you

[mikeselectricstuff]

Feeling sad seeing that solid state diode went poof. 

Thanks Mike ! 

One laser dies, another is reborn - and the yellow HeNe looks much nicer - the DPSS green just looked like a slightly pale 532.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Part 3 :

[German_EE]

First time I've seen a yellow laser.

[AF6LJ]

The optics in that are great.

[BravoV]

Let alone the electronic and optical parts, looking at those so many custom machined aluminium blocks alone is quite scary when thinking about it's production cost.

[AF6LJ]

Let alone the electronic and optical parts, looking at those so many custom machined aluminium blocks alone is quite scary when thinking about it's production cost.

I get a nose bleed just thinking about the cost...

[Turbon]

Just give me one and I'll folow

Regards

[dexters_lab]

really interesting item there & love the engineering involved

shame the pump diode died in that laser, but green lasers are not hard to come by now. The argon and the yellow hene are nice though, there is something about glassware that makes things look so cool!

looking forward to seeing the acoustic filtering stuff

 

[mikeselectricstuff]

really interesting item there & love the engineering involved

shame the pump diode died in that laser, but green lasers are not hard to come by now.

True, though this is a subtly different shade of green....

[mikeselectricstuff]

Part 4

[AF6LJ]

Oh GOODIE....  

[wkb]

Let alone the electronic and optical parts, looking at those so many custom machined aluminium blocks alone is quite scary when thinking about it's production cost.

I get a nose bleed just thinking about the cost...

My guess is that Leica for their camera & optical business have ample CNC capability. With low prouction numbers CNC machining a couple extra bits is most likely the most cost effective approach.

German Maschinenbau at its very best!

[wkb]

Having watched Mike's teardown of the Leica with fascination I remembered I tore down one of these Melles Griot HeNe lasers like 5 years back.

The actual laser tube is fitted in an aluminium tube with some thermoplastic gooey.  Getting the tube out therefore involved sticking the whole thing in the kitchen oven (..I wasn't married at the time  ..) to melt it down.  Bit of a stink but he..

The whole procedure is documented in fotos and videos at https://wkb.home.xs4all.nl/Laser-hacking/

The videos show the defective tube.  I was told by a laser guru (the author of the LaserFAQ btw) that the tube exhibits heavy sputtering which is the reason it never starts.

[Kilrah]

RGBY+Galvanometer - isn't that all you'd need to make a fancy laser quadricolor video projector?
Not enough power though...