Atmospheric temperature and glass laser tube

[ivantandy]

How do general atmospheric conditions affect the laser tube? Is storing a tube at near or below 0 deg. C a problem? What about firing the laser at air temp. 0-5 deg. C / 5-10 deg. C temperatures? What range of air temperature is ideal?

[Things]

As long as there is no water in the tube at risk of freezing (As it can expand and crack the tube), what temp you store the laser at does not matter.

For running the tube, you should keep the water between around 15-25C. The water can be at lower temperatures, but you need to make sure condensation doesn't form.

[Ihatecreatingnames]

For reference, RECI specs min operating temp of 10 C and min storage temp of 2 C with coolant removed. Parallax specs 15 C as min operating temp.

You can easily find this stuff of their web sites if interested. Parallax has discussions of multiple topics of interest.

[ivantandy]

Thanks for the good info (Things) and I (hatecreate).