argon wont fire up

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kdam36

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Sep 10, 2006
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hi... my argon ion wont fire up..

everything lights up including the interlocking and the head glows at the fillament as it should but it just sits there.
i`v also noticed that the board at the front of the head on the inside kinds flashes like a flourecent light but i think thats the voltage building up to fire it up but it just keeps clicking and nothing happens. when i say "flashes", i mean theres a component on the board that has a very very small flash inside it.

thanks
al.
 
how come all you laser nerds know all there is to know about cheap diode but when it comes to real lasers....no answers??
 
I've built a CO2 laser with 15,000 volt supply and a portable NdYAG with two flash lamp drivers BUT I've never had the money to own an Argon Ion.
I would guess that it has a high voltage spark gap to ignite the plasma in the tube but there may also be a main power source which runs the tube after it starts conducting.
Did you get a book ?? I'm guessing two supplies and one isnt putting out. Or the tube has gone bad. At least the filament is getting hot.

Mike
 
I've thought a little more about this and remembered that the lod <10 mW HeNe laser tubes used one HV supply which ignited the gas and then a balast resistor limited the current.
Yours is a different animal. You might try metering across the tube for volts being mindful that it mey be over 1,000 volts. The board at the front which sparks is probably putting out 5,000 to 10,000 volt pulses to "light the fire" !

You may need a 10:1 HV probe to protect your meter.

Mike --

PS: Not all of us "nerds" here play with cheap little diodes - and yes - they ARE real lasers.
 
charger.. thanks for the info. it was good reading but far to technical for me so it looks like the things dead..

never mind lol

thanks
al
 
Argon lasers and their power supplies are way more complicated then diode lasers and there current driver supplies. A argon laser system is basically a argon arc that is maintained by the power supply. There is a high voltage pulse (kicker) circuit that strikes (starts) the argon arc and then a ballast supply takes over to maintain the arc. The high voltage pulse ionizes the argon gas to start the arc, if the tube is at the end of its life it may try to start (wink) but the laser action will not maintain. At this point the tube will have to be regass which is very expensive and has to be done by the manufacture or service center. There are some companies that recondition laser tubes but it is a high end bussiness and out of the reach of most hobbyist. Gas lasers are not used nearly as often now as the diode laser is much more power efficient, less of a pain to implement and very cost effective. All that being said I still have a soft spot for the old school gas lasers.

laserprojector3.jpg



lumia4.jpg

Gary
smile.gif
 
If that laser hasn't been used for a while, the tube may be overpressure. Argons should be run for a couple of minutes quite often (I'd say every month or so), other wise the pressure inside the tube will rise to the point where it's difficult to light the thing.

Also, post this question over at photonlexicon. Several guys there have, or have used argons before. I'm sure they can help.
 
KDAM -

Don't give up yet. Does the tube show any internal glow ?? I have an old 633 HeNe that hadn't been run in ten years. It took two days of "warming" to get it going again. There may be chance if it will start a discharge in the tube and warm up.

Mike
 
cheers guys.. the laser has been running quite regular without any hiccups but the last time i tried to run it, it just wont fire up..the only glow thats inside the head is the filament glow.

will it do any damage if i let it sit with the fillament glowing for a while?
 
hi.. i fired ther laser back up today and noticed a smal lblue glow at the small end of the laser near the board.its not a masive glow and it only glows when the starter clicks. i had it running but not lasering for quite a while incase it srpung back to life but it didnt so i thought i`d ask again about the glow

thanks guys
 
It sounds like the tube is at fault. How many hours are on the tube, do you know, or did you buy it used? You can check to see if the tube is gas intact by putting it next to a tesla coil and watch the tube light. If don't have a tesla coil just put it near a plasma globe. Let us know.


Gary
 
I read that you can use a neon sign psu and thats what i did. i dis-connected the head form the psu and zapped it with the neon psu and it lit up blue in various areas. i also read that you can kick-start it with the neon psu while the head is connected to the laser psu but i didnt have the guts to do that incase of shock or major arcing. i`v no idea how old the tube is but i`d guess at it being a pensioner lol.

thanks
al
 
it might be of more use to you as your probably more techically minded than me lol.
 
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