[HN Gopher] DIY Nitrogen TEA Laser
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DIY Nitrogen TEA Laser
Author : RicoElectrico
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-03-17 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (physicsopenlab.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (physicsopenlab.org)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| These are such a fun way to go blind!
|
| I remember messing around with a UV laser (pretty sure it was
| nitrogen, but it needed a pump and all), when I was a young'un.
|
| Never did get it working properly, which is probably good, as I
| likely would have blinded myself.
|
| I made _lots_ of trouble, when I was a kid. It 's a miracle that
| I'm still alive.
|
| UV lasers are dangerous. Invisible beams, and all.
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| IR lasers, too. Your pupils won't contract because they don't
| see the light, and a lot of damage can be done very quickly.
| You might not notice it immediately either, because your brain
| can paper over small bits of retinal damage to maintain a
| complete image, like it does with your ocular nerve blind
| spots.
|
| Lasers are super cool, but I wouldn't DIY one unless I could
| keep it in a goggles-only room with interlocks on the door to
| cut power.
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| Spark gaps are an interesting way to switch when you get to a
| high enough voltage. Marx generators use a similar principle,
| using the spark to place parallel capacitors in series with one
| another.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_generator
|
| I've often wondered if gas discharge tubes could serve a similar
| function at lower voltages, but I haven't gotten around to trying
| it out.
| ilyt wrote:
| The whole point of using them is that they work at very high
| voltages and are very, very cheap. For low voltages there are
| just many more controllable and consistent ways of switch.
|
| Simple thyristor and cap bank for example. Or just transistor
| and controller.
| azalemeth wrote:
| Indeed -- or the highly related Cockroff Walton generator:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockcroft%E2%80%93Walton_gener...
| neilv wrote:
| This page buries and understates vision-related laser safety:
|
| > _It is also recommended not to look directly at the laser beam,
| to protect the eyes from the UV radiation produced by the
| discharges, to use hearing protection and to pay attention to the
| handling of the permanent magnets._
|
| Especially for a page targeted broadly at "science enthusiasts"
| (in the site's tagline), I'd expect instead to see a glaring red
| warning at the top, along with _effective_ links to getting this
| safety.
| [deleted]
| showerst wrote:
| There's a couple of good videos on these (and other home laser
| fun) on the youtube channel Les' Lab.
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ptp5KuvAJmp8kRV8dqZDA
| kabdib wrote:
| This reminds me of a similar laser detailed in one of Scientific
| American's _The Amateur Scientist_ articles from the 1970s.
|
| I grew up reading those articles, they used to be great. You just
| knew a project was going to be fun when it included a "Model T
| spark coil" :-)
| aj7 wrote:
| Loved your use of the magnets! I thought I knew everything about
| the design and construction of nitrogen lasers but this is a very
| good idea.
|
| That said, for the non-experts out there, TEA N2 lasers are not
| very useful because of their low energy outputs and very short
| (but not ultrashort) pulsewidths. But this is a great example of
| a laser that could have been built by Volta himself around the
| time of George Washington.
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(page generated 2023-03-17 23:00 UTC)