MISSION STATEMENT
Exhilarated by my 15 Minutes of Fame thanks to my junk lasers having been featured in the Chicago Reader, it seems like a good idea to elaborate on my collection. Which pales in comparison to the Vintage Laser Archive site of Bob Hess, but here is mine nevertheless.
GALLERIES
The exhibit is arranged in ascending order of the lasers I have acquired or worked with over the years in the field of holography. However I have not had the time to finish these exhibits, dear viewer. But my other 3 museums do have some very cool stuff!
Retired:
Metrologic ML-820, 2 mW @ 633 nm He-Ne
Melles Griot LHP-171, 7 mW @ 633 nm He-Ne
Spectra-Physics 120a, 5mW @ 633 nm He-Ne
Still In Use:
Lumonics/JK Lasers HLS-2 Ruby, 1 Joule @ 694 nm
Coherent Compass 315-M 100 mW @ 532 nm DPSS Nd:YAG
Uniphase
1145P, 20 mW @ 633nm He-Ne
Melles Griot BLD-605, 400 mW @ 458 nm DPSS Vanadate
Lasos RLK 40200 TS, 200 mW @ 640 nm DPSS
Lake Forest College Lasers
Apollo Ruby, 50 mJ @ 694 Ruby
Coherent CR-2, 2 W @ Argon wavelengths
Spectra-Physics 166, 5 W @ Argon wavelengths
Coherent 1 W @ Krypton wavlengths (The LaserSmith's laser)
Spectra-Physics 120, 5 mW @ 633 nm He-Ne
Spectra-Physics 124a, 15 mW @ 633 nm He-Ne
Spectra-Physics 125, 50 mW @ 633 nm He-Ne
Spectra-Physics 125a, 50 mW @ 633 nm He-Ne
EXCAVATIONS:
Real museums send their archaeologists and paleontologists out into the field to dig for artifacts buried for centuries or millennia or whatever the word is for millions of years. Here are some “excavations” that this museum has made, in pdf Slide Show format.
EL-DON ENGINEERING (June 2014)
It would be hard to find any holographer's Spectra-Physics Model 125 Helium-Neon laser that didn't pass through the doors of 4829 Platt Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA at one time or another for a shot of gas and a thorough tweak at the hands of a man who was there at the dawn of the lasers and holography age, Don Gillespie. He knows these beasts inside and out, as he was the one who designed any serious competition to the fabled S-P Model 120 series He-Ne line up of yore.
Here is a photo gallery of the contents of the shop as taken by yours truly when Hans Bjelkhagen and I were visiting the Detroit area for Hans's beloved Fairlane Fest in June of 2014. A no particular order walk around of 7 or 8 decades of laser and radio tubes and other beloved tinkerer's what-nots. All that's missing is Don describing what you're seeing. (All photos credit Ed Wesly except for the one he is in, credit Hans Bjelkhagen.)
FERMI NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY 15 FOOT BUBBLE CHAMBER HOLOGRAPHY LASER ROOM (ca. 1985 with some 21st Century updates)
Home of bisons, which live in the middle of the accelerator ring, a structure large enough to be seen from space, and the largest fuby laser ever built for holography, the one and only JK HLS-5, pumping out more than 25 Joules! Hans Bjelkhagen hired me to be his assistant there, and it was one heck of an adventure! Here is a slide show of the laser's abode, and even further down the beam line.