tube clamp MK2 BUILD DATA.lbrn2 (1.3 MB)
This holder was originally designed for a 55mm 60W tube, I believe. These are about 1000mm in length or longer. My tube is only 880mm, so I can only place where the tube can be held. This leaves a gap near mirror 1.
The only issue with a longer path is the beam divergence. When a beam leaves an aperture that is many times larger than it’s wavelength, it will diverge or get bigger as it radiates from it’s origin. This holds true in any area were the relationship is similar, such as large antennas and a very much shorter frequency.
I have seen lasers with the tube mounted on the bottom of the machine, hits m1 where it goes up to m2. This is normally m1 and then it follows the typical path. The beam size is bigger, meaning the energy is distributed over a wider area. These are usually measured in mRad. There isn’t much of a groth from our short distances.
Nasa measures the Earth/Moon distance and has done this for half a century. There is a mirror target the size of a paperback novel on the moon. Nasa emits an approximately 3 meter beam (about 10’) towards the moon, it is about 2kM (or 1,000 miles) wide when it strikes the moon. This is beam divergence.
I think it’s such a short distance in our use, it really doesn’t matter… Oddly though, it might be an advantage as the size of the beam is inversely related to the spot size… larger input beam, smaller spot size.
Having a aeronautical engineer as both a dad and a father-n-law, you pick up a bit. This is the original fan that came with the machine. The trick is really air flow, where it’s going to doing what.
Problem with multiple fans is one eventually will drag the down to a lower performance. Unless you know how to design ventilation systems, you’re much wiser to use only one fan.
Helicopter auto gyrate using only the rotor blades because the produce a lot of drag. Multi engine planes feather a prop to lower the drag on that side of the plane..
I find it easier to just use a single fan then there isn’t a question.
You’d need to have some kind of instrument to measure this, but it could be as simple as it’s acting like a vacuum buffer or a capacitor that holds some of the extra volume.
well said…