Dr. Fuchs, Our FACS 440 used to have S-P lasers, both argon and krypton. The rumor I heard was that Coherent had a patent on the plasma tube, that forced S-P to pull out of the market due to legal action. The S-P lasers we had worked well for 10+ years with regular maintenance. Our Coherent lasers (Innova 90-5 argon ion) are currently on their 16th year of service with regular maintenance. We never did a direct comparison of the lasers. We now have a 100mW, 488nm S-P 177-G air-cooled argon laser, that I am finding to be a great improvement over our previous air-cooled laser from Ion Laser Technology (ILT). Although the ILT was spec'd at 100mW -- which it did produce upon delivery -- later in its life it could only muster 40mW reliably. After about 4 years of (light) service I tried to replace the laser head (the tube was integral to the head), only to find that the company no longer manufactured nor supported the model we had. We've had good experiences with both S-P and Coherent. Good luck, Eric >Dear Flowers, > >we would like to add an additional laser on our bench and thought about >a tunable Ar+ laser. A comparison of prices revealed that the stabilite >series from Spectra Physics are the most affordable ones. Does anyone >have experience with either this model series or with Ar+ laser from >spectra Physics in general? It seems that the market is dominated by >Coherent Ar+ lasers? Is it due to superior quality of the Coherent >lasers? Any hints, experiences and advices would be appreciated! >Thanks a lot >Bernhard > >-- >Dr. Bernhard M. Fuchs > >Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology >Molecular Ecology Group - Flow Cytometry > >Celsiusstr. 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany > >tel.:+49 421 2028 934/535; fax.:+49 421 2028 790 Eric Van Buren, eric.vanburen@wayne.edu Karmanos Cancer Institute and Immunology & Microbiology Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA
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