Re: laser lifetimes

Posted by Craig Brideau on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/laser-lifetimes-tp2187288p2188785.html

I agree with Simon and Christian; if you think you can handle the alignment yourself just buying new lasers and self-installing can be cheaper.  One thing though; if you don't have someone with a decent optics skill set aligning the lasers can sometimes be tricky.  Also, when you buy your replacement laser be careful who you buy it from.  Very frequently a cheap laser is just that; a cheap laser.  There are issues of mode quality (basically shape of the beam out of the laser etc.) that need to be addressed to get good performance in a confocal system.  Again, if you don't have somebody with a basic optics background to go through all this then you could have trouble.

Craig

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Christian <[hidden email]> wrote:

If the service contract for the confocal unit itself covers alignment (depending on your comfort level, you might not even need that), then often it's cheaper to just outright purchase a new laser than cover one for several years and never need to have anything done with it. 

In our facility, the diode laser have worked just fine for 5 years, of course some of them are not used daily.

I also suspect service contracts will go up, and the cost of lasers will go down over the course of 5 years.

While I have not offered you anything solid, I suggest you look at your comfort level, funding and get price quotes for replacement lasers and read the fine print on the service contract.  We removed all the diodes from our contracts.

Christian