" I myself have no special talent . Curiosity , obsession dogged endurance combined with self criticism have brought me to my goals." Words of Einstein. I see all these traits in you. Well done.
I think people mistake talent for being born with some skill innate to yourself. Nah. Ever wondered why autistic people seem to have very specific talents? Realy all it is is caring about something enough to do it every day. Thats what talent is. And you definitely seem to have it.
you did a nice job and did get a output from it. You may want to work on your power supply, most neon lights use a AC supply. So your laser has to trigger or light up on the very top and very bottom of the AC cycle. Like they said, use a DC supply with a current limit or bias resistor. This will have the high voltage to trigger the gas and then keep the laser run with out blowing the fuse on the varactor. Also, you do need very clean mirrors too. Have fun and be safe. In 72, in high school, we built a neon laser. Shot it down the hall from the science room to the counselor office door, (50yds). It left a mark. 😎
Very cool! Mirror adjustment is definitely a key part of such a laser, I’d consider installing one of those 2-axis adjustable mirrors like you see on laser tables. Perfectly isolating the water jacket from the electricity would also be very useful, and I hear JB weld is surprisingly good for vacuum systems. It may also be worth trying to assemble the whole thing out of borosilicate, seeing as you already appear to have welding equipment.
The gap between the mirrors has to a resonant cavity. This requires a mirror to be "Tuned" to the wavelength of the light emitted by the lasing medium.
I'd align mirror perfect and use a improvised output mirror with a tiny hole in the 100% coating. Your vacuum hoses should be the internal mesh re-enforced kind, and fine valve adjustment is mandatory.
Yours works much better than the one i built when i was 12. i mean, they both lit up but yours is actually lasing. Well done mister. can't wait to see how a DC supply changes things for you.
Instead of trying to rectify and filter a 15Kv source (which might not like a high capacitance on it's output), you might want to consider a Cockcroft-Walton multiplier. It's basically just a ladder of diodes and capacitors. It's one of the simplest ways to design a step-up converter, but it turns AC into high voltage DC, and apparently powering lasers is one of it's main uses.
Oh, man, you gave me flashbacks. When you were shoving the glass tube into the aluminum with the O-ring, it made me remember when I was pushing a glass tube into a rubber stopper (chemistry class). Heard a "click", and thought, uh oh. Yup, the glass tube had broken and drove into my middle finger. 50 years later and I still have the scar, and the still-numb area due to the cut nerves. Just sayin', be careful applying force to glass with bare hands!
Great video! One tip. When you tap aluminum, don't use oil, use alcohol like pure ethanol or isopropanol. Just put the tap in the alcohol and go to the town with that hole... This makes huge difference. Just give it a try next time.cheers.
I used 99% denatured alcohol and isopropyl alcohol for years at a machine shop I worked at, I can confirm it works great for aluminum (it also works for brass or other nonferrous metals, but it will _not_ work for hard ferrous metals). I had an airbrush connected to a switched solenoid valve that I used as a coolant spray system, the airbrush was on an articulated arm and could aim wherever it was needed. The airbrush also drastically reduced the temperature of the alcohol by evaporation, the workpiece would get so cold that water would condense on its surface. There are some small size high-speed machining centers that only use alcohol as well, but they are rare and can create a serious fire hazard, most of them purge the enclosed machine with inert gas.
Well, in my physics studies, we used heavy tables with additional mechanic decoupling of the ground for laser experiments. The most difficult part in your setup is IMHO is the alignment of reflectors, they must be exactly parallel, since an amplified photon ray should bounds back and forth infinitely, to get the full amplification effect. So I would have expected some 3-point adjustable mounts in your build. Don't ask me how, I am a theorist, I don't know and would have to look it up too.
OK. Was NOT expecting this video. It was like watching Woody Harrelson with hair working as a mad scientist. I think that is what I just watched. Having said that, this was really cool. Can't wait to see it cut metal.
I'm super impressed. This is the kind of resourcefulness every loner with a survival bunker wishes they had. When the end-times comes and we're eating sawdust and dirt grubs, you'll be sittin' pretty on the skull throne.
Necessary, useful device for household chores! I think everyone should make such a device. Only in this design, special water is needed for cooling, otherwise there will be a short electrical circuit!
Hey that's like my science fair project from 30 years ago! I burned some stuff with that. I also concluded that DC was the way to go, but never actually got to that point before it broke.
so the issue is you do not have an optical cavity because the mirrors are likely misaligned the mirrors have to be perfectly parallel to each other. few things: you might want to start with a dye pumped laser first, that will teach you the basics of what you need to achieve. Next you might want to get different o rings, the wrong type of plastic or sealant can introduce off gassing into the tube before the gas mixture can get into the system. You also might want to try to actually remove the mirrors entirely and instead put in a bit of glass that is transparent at the wavelength of light you are looking for this way you will be able to put the mirrors outside the tube and dial them in. Also look into getting some sort of optical table built.
also regarding the problems with the power output maybe its not related with the power you are supplying but with the alignment of the mirrors, the chance of a photon hitting an excited atom is quite low, for that to happen with a frequency high enough as to get stimulated emission you need the photons to go through the tube many thousands of times which means the mirrors must be really well aligned and the amount of atoms in an excited state should be enough, you are putting in 300w, idk for sure but that sounds like enough, the mirrors are aligned however with the accuracy that the lathe gives you for what i can see, that is most likely not good enough
Info i've seen from a few tube manufacturers is the mixture needs to be He:N2:CO2 ,8:1:1 +5% xenon. the gas pressure inside the tube should be 70-100 mbar (1-1.4 psi). Commercially available RECI power supplies are 35kV DC@ 23mA..
Voltage doesn't kill. Amps do. FYI.. However. I like your video very much.. I think you should do another video explaining exactly what things are doing, and why, but overall great job... Thanks for the video.
Great new channel.....Just love those who take your approach to projects. When I built my laser cutter I just bought a 60w CO2 tube....lol. Never though of making one. Regards Kevin
This is a neat idea! I can't help but wander why they don't just take laser tubes and coat them with phosphor coating just like fluorescent tubes, only using a laser?
My guess is that you had not pulled enough of a vacuum initially. Gasses become much more electrically conductive as they approach a pure vacuum, and to generate plasma you typically only want a few tenths or less PSI. Tech Ingredient's video on plasma tubes is a good overview of the issue.
This is a lot like the one i made back in high school. You can use plain old air as your nitrogen source if you like. The other gasses dont throw the lasing out by much.
This hits correct. Also, the rest is what, 20% oxygen and some trace gasses?. Simply use up the oxygen by putting it in a box with a candle or something. The resulting carbon dioxide can be calculated and factored into the mix.
The reason is the alignment of the mirrors is so hard you have to put them on movable tilt with two direction to align the mirrors and movable laser He-Ne or red semiconductor laser and let the red laser beam come through the center of the two mirrors and you have to get multi reflection spot in one spot (center of the mirrors) and not scattered sopts .the scattered sopts means the two mirrors are not parallel .the maximum power you can obtain is about 270 watt at 30% efficiency Mohammed Jawad from Iraq .
I know a guy who had a funky discharge from his outlet port. Probably due to contamination through contact with a funky inlet port. Anyway, penicillin cured it.
Coming to comments to look for statements regarding voltage not being deadly. Just amps Edit for those curious: Your average taser/stun gun runs at around 50,000 volts or 50 kilovolts. Compare that to his neon sign transformers that were 10 and 15 kilovolts respectively. Now the difference is the 15 kV neon transformer is 60 mA. Which is in a range of amperage that can cause respiratory arrest, muscular contractions (inability to let go), and even death. While the taser/stun gun is around 50 kV it is usually less than 5 mA. Around 5 mA you will get shocked, but still be able to let go of an object. Intense involuntary spasms are possible, however, death is very unlikely.
Thanks so much! I didn't get too in detail as I'm just learning this myself. I posted a link to a forum in the dooblydoo that has a huge amount of info on these lasers. Once I button down the design more I'll do a more in depth explanation in the next video!
To smooth power after a rectifier, a low pass filter that uses a coil, ground, and a capacitor is needed. If you just use a cap, it will not take out all of the noise on the DC. Ideally, you would rectify, filter, then connect a battery, but at these voltages that isn't possible. You are also going to need to use wiring and components that can take that high voltage or you will fry them, even the wiring. You might want to consider building a voltage multiplier using diodes and ultra capacitors and just make a pulsed laser. There are demos of this circuit type on other channels on TH-cam, but I must stress that if you are not trained to handle high voltage circuits safely, DO NOT build a voltage multiplier for high voltage.. It can easily kill you or start a fire.
golden shovel a bit but blue colour indicates invalid gas composition, humidity or even oxygen. Gas during excitation should be orange with small part of violet.
Awesome work! So Cool! For helium, the helium sold for balloons is nt pure helium, that way teenagers don't get asphyxiated when they try to breath it. I think it's even less than 50%. (I didn't see anyone else say this, so I thought I'd chime in). Can't wait for video #2!
The one I found says it's 95% helium, although I do have my doubts haha. I'll be buying a bottle of the good stuff once I button this whole process down. thanks for the support!
Nice low tech way of working, proves you don't kneed the best of equipments and a phd to suceed. Hell you don't even worry about keeping your optics clean. I like it a lot.
Hey, too lazy to dig through the comments to see if anyone else has mentioned it, but I possibly noticed one of the issues. "Helium" sold for balloons can actually be air with nearly the minimum amount of helium required to make balloons float. If it doesn't display the percentage of helium, I'd assume it's lower than you'd hope.
Very interesting process but this is all too dangerous for me so I was wondering if you could list me the items I would need to DIY my own CO2 laser? I already have the frames, all the mechanics. Thanks
I wonder if it's possible to just light some alcohol in a sealed container to get the nitrogen CO2 mix, probably not close though since some of the oxygen would end up forming water instead of CO2 (and then theres sideproducts like acetaldehyde when theres low oxygen and also carbon monoxide) but just a thought
@ #CranktownCity ...Oh man, I'm going to show everyone this video, as it shows what I learned at trade school. I'm a "Mechanical Fitter" by trade. As we call the trade, in Australia. Everyone thinks I learned how to fit car parts. Nope. Start with raw materials, measure, cut, machine, drill, tap, lap... I do the High voltage stuff too, but self taught. Have you considered using a plasma ball transformer and powering it by induction ? I can light yard long neon tubes, by proximity... Just a thought. Love your tenacity, Mr #CranktownCity ! You should be the president of America when Joe quits. You have talent, mate!
Just for reference, any contact with first surface mirrors causes damage, and the very act of cleaning them destroys their surface. Wear ultra clean gloves when handling them and only touch the sides, or you'll lose a ton of power and efficiency to scattering. I was cringing when I saw those dirty greasy fingers contacting that gorgeous surface🤣. Great work though, that's beyond what many laser hobbyists are willing to go as far as building your own tube, good luck getting it fully functional.
Hey ! great video , I never even thought using Co2 to get plasma was possible. On that note, isn't it dangerous to casually break open CFL glass tubes like you did in 3:01 ? Those generally contain mercury vapor which is very toxic.
As far as I'm aware, the amount of vapor is more of an "oh crap if we don't dispose of all these millions of bulbs properly it's gonna release a bunch of mercury into the air" problem and less of an "oh crap I dropped a bulb my house is a superfund site now" problem The amount of mercury In a single bulb is a tiny amount to help start the arc, so as long as you're doing it somewhere ventilated you should be fine. Still probably not worth risking it unless you've got a good reason to, though; it's not like there's a safe amount of mercury to breathe.
not really. The sealed laser tubes that are available commercially use a perfect cocktail of gases, that don't need to be replaced for years. Maybe your supplier can refill for you, but I think most of the ones available these days are just meant to be consumables.
" I myself have no special talent . Curiosity , obsession dogged endurance combined with self criticism have brought me to my goals." Words of Einstein. I see all these traits in you. Well done.
Dude, thank you.
This comment definitely made me feel things
Dude new favorite quote thank you
I think people mistake talent for being born with some skill innate to yourself. Nah. Ever wondered why autistic people seem to have very specific talents?
Realy all it is is caring about something enough to do it every day. Thats what talent is. And you definitely seem to have it.
The Einstein quote is "have no special talent. I am only passionately curious"
@@cranktowncity
Can I use gt2 6mm belt for x and y?
Because it is only available in my place!
I think this guy needs to be supported by some group of people that understand all his stuff he is working on .
That's a very brave attempt at building a precision optical system.
Great you're being careful,
Best of luck to you!
The most likeable youtuber I've ever come across. Awesome content!!
... And all this is with the benefit of the knowledge of those who went before - it makes you really respect the people who did it for the first time.
The lasers I used to run were DC pumped, I think you're on the right track.
All of your videos are insane. Love the effort you put into your DIY projects, dude. I’m super impressed.
Dude! You named the vacuum chamber the “suckbox”😂 that was the last straw… I’m subscribed now! Great content man!
you did a nice job and did get a output from it. You may want to work on your power supply, most neon lights use a AC supply. So your laser has to trigger or light up on the very top and very bottom of the AC cycle. Like they said, use a DC supply with a current limit or bias resistor. This will have the high voltage to trigger the gas and then keep the laser run with out blowing the fuse on the varactor. Also, you do need very clean mirrors too.
Have fun and be safe. In 72, in high school, we built a neon laser. Shot it down the hall from the science room to the counselor office door, (50yds). It left a mark. 😎
Very cool! Mirror adjustment is definitely a key part of such a laser, I’d consider installing one of those 2-axis adjustable mirrors like you see on laser tables. Perfectly isolating the water jacket from the electricity would also be very useful, and I hear JB weld is surprisingly good for vacuum systems.
It may also be worth trying to assemble the whole thing out of borosilicate, seeing as you already appear to have welding equipment.
The gap between the mirrors has to a resonant cavity.
This requires a mirror to be "Tuned" to the wavelength of the light emitted by the lasing medium.
I'd align mirror perfect and use a improvised output mirror with a tiny hole in the 100% coating. Your vacuum hoses should be the internal mesh re-enforced kind, and fine valve adjustment is mandatory.
Yours works much better than the one i built when i was 12. i mean, they both lit up but yours is actually lasing. Well done mister. can't wait to see how a DC supply changes things for you.
Didn't even finish the video and subscribed. So impressive
Instead of trying to rectify and filter a 15Kv source (which might not like a high capacitance on it's output), you might want to consider a Cockcroft-Walton multiplier. It's basically just a ladder of diodes and capacitors. It's one of the simplest ways to design a step-up converter, but it turns AC into high voltage DC, and apparently powering lasers is one of it's main uses.
I have some damaged tubes, you are a genius, I am a programmer and the operator of CNC machines from Morocco
Oh, man, you gave me flashbacks. When you were shoving the glass tube into the aluminum with the O-ring, it made me remember when I was pushing a glass tube into a rubber stopper (chemistry class). Heard a "click", and thought, uh oh. Yup, the glass tube had broken and drove into my middle finger. 50 years later and I still have the scar, and the still-numb area due to the cut nerves. Just sayin', be careful applying force to glass with bare hands!
The number of chem students who do that is... staggering. (count me in)
I very rarely if ever subscribe partway through the first video I watch from a new creator, but you made me do it.
You should try to tune by varying the length of the cavity . How ?? By placing mirrors outside the vacuum tube
Great video! One tip. When you tap aluminum, don't use oil, use alcohol like pure ethanol or isopropanol. Just put the tap in the alcohol and go to the town with that hole... This makes huge difference. Just give it a try next time.cheers.
Never heard of this before, I'll give it a shot!
Thanks man!
I used 99% denatured alcohol and isopropyl alcohol for years at a machine shop I worked at, I can confirm it works great for aluminum (it also works for brass or other nonferrous metals, but it will _not_ work for hard ferrous metals). I had an airbrush connected to a switched solenoid valve that I used as a coolant spray system, the airbrush was on an articulated arm and could aim wherever it was needed. The airbrush also drastically reduced the temperature of the alcohol by evaporation, the workpiece would get so cold that water would condense on its surface. There are some small size high-speed machining centers that only use alcohol as well, but they are rare and can create a serious fire hazard, most of them purge the enclosed machine with inert gas.
Well, in my physics studies, we used heavy tables with additional mechanic decoupling of the ground for laser experiments.
The most difficult part in your setup is IMHO is the alignment of reflectors, they must be exactly parallel, since an amplified photon ray should bounds back and forth infinitely, to get the full amplification effect.
So I would have expected some 3-point adjustable mounts in your build. Don't ask me how, I am a theorist, I don't know and would have to look it up too.
I know telescope some (cheap) telescope mounts use heavy springs with a washer and a bolt to implement an adjustable mount.
Saw your post about this on hackaday, and after watching your videos I immediately new I have found The source of great videos.
Man o man! You would be a fun neighbor with these cool science projects! Thanks for the great video!
OK. Was NOT expecting this video. It was like watching Woody Harrelson with hair working as a mad scientist. I think that is what I just watched. Having said that, this was really cool. Can't wait to see it cut metal.
Well done brother I'm watching you from Gabon, Africa 🇬🇦 keep going
just found this channel and 5 mins into this video you have already got my sub. love the little jokes and what not. keen to see where this goes
I'm super impressed. This is the kind of resourcefulness every loner with a survival bunker wishes they had. When the end-times comes and we're eating sawdust and dirt grubs, you'll be sittin' pretty on the skull throne.
This is dope man. Clean Beam indeed.
3 whatever you were doing was great to watch subbed can't wait see were this goes. First video Ive seen from you. 👍👍
Necessary, useful device for household chores! I think everyone should make such a device. Only in this design, special water is needed for cooling, otherwise there will be a short electrical circuit!
The tube is the missing link in diy co2 cnc. Great progress!
For me too...😀
What a great video, hilarious, I loved it, can't believe you pulled this off, you're a genius, thank you.
Lol - "Hope we don't get an implosion, or if we do, it looks cool." The bite marks in the chair comment was also gold.
I love the high quality presentation.
I enjoyed the seemingly unintentional "rectify" pun in your summary at the end :D
The video editing is top notch
Immediately subscribed. Make a CNC cutter to cut parts to make another CNC cutter and then slowly build a self building factory.
think I found my new favorite channel
Thanks. Feel better. Found your channel attempting to be assured somebody wasn’t going to run down the road with a homemade laser
nice!! leaks are major issues when dealing with low vaccuums in my experience.
Hey that's like my science fair project from 30 years ago! I burned some stuff with that. I also concluded that DC was the way to go, but never actually got to that point before it broke.
part 2?
so the issue is you do not have an optical cavity because the mirrors are likely misaligned the mirrors have to be perfectly parallel to each other. few things: you might want to start with a dye pumped laser first, that will teach you the basics of what you need to achieve. Next you might want to get different o rings, the wrong type of plastic or sealant can introduce off gassing into the tube before the gas mixture can get into the system. You also might want to try to actually remove the mirrors entirely and instead put in a bit of glass that is transparent at the wavelength of light you are looking for this way you will be able to put the mirrors outside the tube and dial them in. Also look into getting some sort of optical table built.
I love your presentation / delivery / style on these videos. Keep up The Great Work.
also regarding the problems with the power output maybe its not related with the power you are supplying but with the alignment of the mirrors, the chance of a photon hitting an excited atom is quite low, for that to happen with a frequency high enough as to get stimulated emission you need the photons to go through the tube many thousands of times which means the mirrors must be really well aligned and the amount of atoms in an excited state should be enough, you are putting in 300w, idk for sure but that sounds like enough, the mirrors are aligned however with the accuracy that the lathe gives you for what i can see, that is most likely not good enough
Info i've seen from a few tube manufacturers is the mixture needs to be He:N2:CO2 ,8:1:1 +5% xenon. the gas pressure inside the tube should be 70-100 mbar (1-1.4 psi). Commercially available RECI power supplies are 35kV DC@ 23mA..
Just found your channel - love the presentation style.
Voltage doesn't kill. Amps do. FYI..
However. I like your video very much.. I think you should do another video explaining exactly what things are doing, and why, but overall great job... Thanks for the video.
Great new channel.....Just love those who take your approach to projects. When I built my laser cutter I just bought a 60w CO2 tube....lol. Never though of making one. Regards Kevin
Very, very cool! Didn't know it was possible to DIY a laser tube.
Thanks man!
It's definitely giving me a hard time but we'll get there!
This is a neat idea! I can't help but wander why they don't just take laser tubes and coat them with phosphor coating just like fluorescent tubes, only using a laser?
I really like how you do things with what you have. No frills. Sort of Festuvus for the rest of us.
My guess is that you had not pulled enough of a vacuum initially. Gasses become much more electrically conductive as they approach a pure vacuum, and to generate plasma you typically only want a few tenths or less PSI. Tech Ingredient's video on plasma tubes is a good overview of the issue.
This is a lot like the one i made back in high school. You can use plain old air as your nitrogen source if you like. The other gasses dont throw the lasing out by much.
This hits correct. Also, the rest is what, 20% oxygen and some trace gasses?. Simply use up the oxygen by putting it in a box with a candle or something. The resulting carbon dioxide can be calculated and factored into the mix.
Jeff Lebowski's son does physics. Perhaps a nice rug would really tie the shop together.
no puede usar una flyback de tv o monitor crt para ionizar*?
way to go into the unknown! Never hesitate trying something new!
New sub. Love your curiosity!
You could make your own mercury arc rectifier, probably don't need a starter with that voltage.
The reason is the alignment of the mirrors is so hard you have to put them on movable tilt with two direction to align the mirrors and movable laser He-Ne or red semiconductor laser and let the red laser beam come through the center of the two mirrors and you have to get multi reflection spot in one spot (center of the mirrors) and not scattered sopts .the scattered sopts means the two mirrors are not parallel .the maximum power you can obtain is about 270 watt at 30% efficiency Mohammed Jawad from Iraq .
Before I am off to part 2: Wow-factor 1x10^infinity 😍
Awesome stuff man!
I know a guy who had a funky discharge from his outlet port. Probably due to contamination through contact with a funky inlet port. Anyway, penicillin cured it.
good choice on the neon sign transformer. not lethal like the old microwave oven transformer...
great video have subscribed
A neon transformer at 30 mA will kill you just as fast as a MOT will.
Can the parts I machined in aluminum be replaced with nylon?
Coming to comments to look for statements regarding voltage not being deadly. Just amps
Edit for those curious:
Your average taser/stun gun runs at around 50,000 volts or 50 kilovolts. Compare that to his neon sign transformers that were 10 and 15 kilovolts respectively.
Now the difference is the 15 kV neon transformer is 60 mA. Which is in a range of amperage that can cause respiratory arrest, muscular contractions (inability to let go), and even death.
While the taser/stun gun is around 50 kV it is usually less than 5 mA. Around 5 mA you will get shocked, but still be able to let go of an object. Intense involuntary spasms are possible, however, death is very unlikely.
Love your work. Great video. Keep em coming mate 👍
Will Harbor Freight please open a chain in the UK. Some of that stuff is just so expensive here.
would have loved to hear more about this build and how it works and so on but loved the vid. vary inspiring!
Thanks so much!
I didn't get too in detail as I'm just learning this myself. I posted a link to a forum in the dooblydoo that has a huge amount of info on these lasers.
Once I button down the design more I'll do a more in depth explanation in the next video!
@@cranktowncity sounds good man keep it up!
Crazy amount of work to build an old pump. Wow.
Hello, do you have the purchase link for the ZnSe partial reflector. thanks!!!!
That heat-cutting technique works a little better if the glass is scored with a glass cutter, first.
master. many time wait for co2 laser. thanks
To smooth power after a rectifier, a low pass filter that uses a coil, ground, and a capacitor is needed. If you just use a cap, it will not take out all of the noise on the DC. Ideally, you would rectify, filter, then connect a battery, but at these voltages that isn't possible. You are also going to need to use wiring and components that can take that high voltage or you will fry them, even the wiring. You might want to consider building a voltage multiplier using diodes and ultra capacitors and just make a pulsed laser. There are demos of this circuit type on other channels on TH-cam, but I must stress that if you are not trained to handle high voltage circuits safely, DO NOT build a voltage multiplier for high voltage.. It can easily kill you or start a fire.
golden shovel a bit but blue colour indicates invalid gas composition, humidity or even oxygen. Gas during excitation should be orange with small part of violet.
variac fuse gets me every time hopefully auto zones open
Awesome work! So Cool! For helium, the helium sold for balloons is nt pure helium, that way teenagers don't get asphyxiated when they try to breath it. I think it's even less than 50%. (I didn't see anyone else say this, so I thought I'd chime in). Can't wait for video #2!
The one I found says it's 95% helium, although I do have my doubts haha. I'll be buying a bottle of the good stuff once I button this whole process down.
thanks for the support!
@@cranktowncity 95% nice!
Literally my favorite youtuber ever 5:56
So do you need AC or DC for a laser?
Most of youtube: I'll build a laser cutter, heres the co2 tube i bought
This man: hold my welder
Nice low tech way of working, proves you don't kneed the best of equipments and a phd to suceed. Hell you don't even worry about keeping your optics clean. I like it a lot.
I liked the way he tapped the mirror with his finger at the start of the video
Hey, too lazy to dig through the comments to see if anyone else has mentioned it, but I possibly noticed one of the issues. "Helium" sold for balloons can actually be air with nearly the minimum amount of helium required to make balloons float. If it doesn't display the percentage of helium, I'd assume it's lower than you'd hope.
How much does the soap costs in US?
Have you tried using helium 3 or 4 instead of regular helium since helium 3 is more stable than regular helium?
Are the two tubes glass or acrylic?
its amazing, but how do you find out how many volts/amps the tube can handle?
Very interesting process but this is all too dangerous for me so I was wondering if you could list me the items I would need to DIY my own CO2 laser? I already have the frames, all the mechanics. Thanks
Can it be used on CNC co2?
I wonder if it's possible to just light some alcohol in a sealed container to get the nitrogen CO2 mix, probably not close though since some of the oxygen would end up forming water instead of CO2 (and then theres sideproducts like acetaldehyde when theres low oxygen and also carbon monoxide) but just a thought
@ #CranktownCity ...Oh man, I'm going to show everyone this video, as it shows what I learned at trade school. I'm a "Mechanical Fitter" by trade. As we call the trade, in Australia. Everyone thinks I learned how to fit car parts. Nope. Start with raw materials, measure, cut, machine, drill, tap, lap... I do the High voltage stuff too, but self taught. Have you considered using a plasma ball transformer and powering it by induction ? I can light yard long neon tubes, by proximity... Just a thought. Love your tenacity, Mr #CranktownCity ! You should be the president of America when Joe quits. You have talent, mate!
Just for reference, any contact with first surface mirrors causes damage, and the very act of cleaning them destroys their surface. Wear ultra clean gloves when handling them and only touch the sides, or you'll lose a ton of power and efficiency to scattering. I was cringing when I saw those dirty greasy fingers contacting that gorgeous surface🤣. Great work though, that's beyond what many laser hobbyists are willing to go as far as building your own tube, good luck getting it fully functional.
146k views? TH-cam broke man. U deserve beyond that.
What about mercury vapor in this tube?
Hey ! great video , I never even thought using Co2 to get plasma was possible. On that note, isn't it dangerous to casually break open CFL glass tubes like you did in 3:01 ? Those generally contain mercury vapor which is very toxic.
As far as I'm aware, the amount of vapor is more of an "oh crap if we don't dispose of all these millions of bulbs properly it's gonna release a bunch of mercury into the air" problem and less of an "oh crap I dropped a bulb my house is a superfund site now" problem
The amount of mercury In a single bulb is a tiny amount to help start the arc, so as long as you're doing it somewhere ventilated you should be fine. Still probably not worth risking it unless you've got a good reason to, though; it's not like there's a safe amount of mercury to breathe.
Bro i can't believe i haven't found you sooner
craziness. nice work!
First video ive seen from you and i subbed. Good shit
Killer project and video. Keep it up!
Hi! what lamp do you use?
Can we refill old lasertube with co2 to make the tube work again
not really. The sealed laser tubes that are available commercially use a perfect cocktail of gases, that don't need to be replaced for years. Maybe your supplier can refill for you, but I think most of the ones available these days are just meant to be consumables.
@@cranktowncity Thanks sir
been shocked by neon back in my theater electrical contractor days ..shit aint no joke!!