The boss was cleaning out a closet at work and was getting ready to pitch a dental curing light (LaserMed Accucure 3000) into the trash until I rescued it. When I got it home and looked at it I discovered it is an Argon laser. It has a LaserPhysics Reliant 300b tube. In spite of sitting in a closet, unused for who knows how many years, I powered it up and it lit right up. My initial test with the built in power meter was reading only about 80 mW out, but I've let it run for a while in the last couple weeks and power is now up to about 120 mW.
I haven't been able to locate any data on the tube (or a manual for the curing light that contains it), though I did find a web site that has a sample spectral output from it- there were a few blue and a few green lines and that's it. Does anyone know where I can find some data? The built-in hour meter says it has 2800 hours on it. Is that young, middle age, or old? Since it was used in a dental curing light, it may not have been designed for continuous operation. What is a safe duty cycle for it?
The normal output is via a fiberoptic handpiece, and there a small lens to spread the beam at the output of the laser to light up the whole fiber bundle. I can remove the lens and then I get a nice narrow beam out of it.
Now I have to decide what to do with it... I'm open to suggestions...
I haven't been able to locate any data on the tube (or a manual for the curing light that contains it), though I did find a web site that has a sample spectral output from it- there were a few blue and a few green lines and that's it. Does anyone know where I can find some data? The built-in hour meter says it has 2800 hours on it. Is that young, middle age, or old? Since it was used in a dental curing light, it may not have been designed for continuous operation. What is a safe duty cycle for it?
The normal output is via a fiberoptic handpiece, and there a small lens to spread the beam at the output of the laser to light up the whole fiber bundle. I can remove the lens and then I get a nice narrow beam out of it.
Now I have to decide what to do with it... I'm open to suggestions...