PICS!!! my new green 3mw hene

[james1095]

Thanks for heads up again.

BUT, I really want an a/c one. I can't deal with another wal-wart on a d/c.

There is another option, you can mount a DC power supply in a box with the DC brick and have a "lab style" HeNe power supply that plugs straight into the wall without a wall wart.

I've salvaged suitable power supplies out of old external hard drives, old laptop charger bricks, and other obsolete equipment. I've also bought cheap switchmode wall warts off ebay and disassembled them to a bare PCB that I incorporate in projects I build.


I do prefer AC powered HeNe bricks but if all you can find is a DC one it's not the end of the world.

 

[chipdouglas]

i won't be able to fire my green up till dave gets back. he has a power supply that he will sell me.

michael.

 

[qumefox]

Grrr. I wish I would have known about these while they were still available.

 

[icecruncher]

There is another option, you can mount a DC power supply in a box with the DC brick and have a "lab style" HeNe power supply that plugs straight into the wall without a wall wart.

I've salvaged suitable power supplies out of old external hard drives, old laptop charger bricks, and other obsolete equipment. I've also bought cheap switchmode wall warts off ebay and disassembled them to a bare PCB that I incorporate in projects I build.


I do prefer AC powered HeNe bricks but if all you can find is a DC one it's not the end of the world.

Finding is not hard, swallowing what they want for a new ac brick is! I'm in no hurry, one will pop up on eBay eventually and probably with another hene tube

Btw , Love all the pic of these

 

[james1095]

Well yes, by "find" I meant find at a hobbyist price. You're right though, the cheapest power supplies I've bought came with lasers. One of my lab PSUs was way too powerful for the poor little 1-2mW head it came with but it's perfect for my green head.

If you're really ambitious, I reverse engineered two different line powered HeNe bricks, schematics are posted in Sam's FAQ. Between my schematics and various DC powered PSUs that Sam and others have documented, there's enough info to build something from scratch. Most of the commercial units out there use very old designs, I think I would go with a TL494 or similar PWM IC rather than a discrete approach.