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FrozenGate by Avery

Help needed - jury rigging a PSU from incomplete one

celas

celas

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Feb 13, 2015
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Hello

I have 2 argon laser heads, one NLC 800 Series (quite large) and one Uniphase 2211 (in very good condition, got it from local auctioning site). Unfortunately I can't do anything with them since I don't have a proper PSU. I have an argon laser PSU from scrapyard which is somewhat working (starts and outputs filament voltage) but lacks entire control board (junkyard gold-seekers took it out before I found it) so I don't know if there is a way to use it
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Is there any chance of jury rigging a PSU from this? I wanted to test the heads
I have - they are just laying around and I'd really like to power them up
 

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You're going to use an untested PSU to test a group of several untested heads?

How are you electrical engineering and troubleshooting skills? How well can you read a schematic? With as much respect as possible, the fact that you're even asking says to me this project would be too big for you to tackle. The interconnect interface and umbilical situation alone would lead more experienced users to toss everything in the fuckit bucket.
 
Cyparagon said:
You're going to use an untested PSU to test a group of several untested heads?

How are you electrical engineering and troubleshooting skills? How well can you read a schematic? With as much respect as possible, the fact that you're even asking says to me this project would be too big for you to tackle. The interconnect interface and umbilical situation alone would lead more experienced users to toss everything in the fuckit bucket.
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Going by the pictures alone I'd salvage anything useful that's still good (FETs, connectors, transformers, heatsinks) and toss the rest.

It'd be easier to build a simple test PSU from scratch than get that thing going again. That or grab a cheap model 2111 PSU from eBay and use that (as RCB suggested), those supplies work with both the 2211 (square) and 2214 (round) heads.
 
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My 2211 head is a little bit newer than this PSU (has one 22 pin connector instead of two smaller ones and a digital hour meter) but they should be compatibile. The big problem here is that I can't really buy an argon laser PSU because I live in Europe and shipping from US is prohibitely expensive. So I was thinking I could just make a crude solution from the things I have. BTW, yes, I can read schematics pretty well. The PSU was definitely working before the garbage warriors took the control PCB cause it was from a big decomissioned IBM laser printer (which was OK as far as I know). Also I know I need 3.0 VAC, 110 VDC and a starter pulse to get it going - I just wonder how to force this PSU to provide it without control board, maybe I could just bypass the control circuits and lock this PSU in working state (at 7A for example) if it's viable
 
If I had it in front of me I would learn what's needed then go about making it happen.

Maybe someone who knows these can spoon feed you the info, otherwise educate yourself and make it happen.

I have heard people talk about letting them idle, so I assume there's a warm up period where some compensation will be needed, you probably don't want to try to power it until it's ready, so first do you know what it needs to get warmed up and ready and you want your cooling fans running, apparently some have liquid cooling as well, these have very low efficiency and lots of waste heat.


There is info to be found.

Here is a good place to start >>>> Sam's Laser FAQ - Argon/Krypton Ion Lasers

If you know all the basics you can jump here >>>> http://rommet.com/remco/misc/Don's Lights/members.misty.com/don/laseraps.htm#apstoc

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----edit----

If the shipping cost of a 20 pound PS is an issue then this may not be the laser for you, from the minutes of reading I just did I see these are not simple and require a lot of TLC and likely some investment, at least of time which you should spend reading the links. :D
 
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Just saw this. That PSU looks like it had a hard life and is now incomplete, the rest being of unknown functionality. I believe if you are unable to afford a working supply trying to resurrect this unit may be above your skill level. I'm not trying to disrespect you, just an observation.
 
The entire control board is missing? This whole undertaking is a waste of time even for an experienced ion guru. Designing, building, and debugging a new one would take hundreds of hours, and many failed attempts.

It's dead. Let it go. Move on.
 
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