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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Remember to exercise those argons!

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I believe Ultimatekaiser said the same thing in an earlier post in this thread.......if you want to go looking for it. It should be in the last four pages of this thread.
 





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Yeah, just wanted you to know so you wouldn't be pulling your argons out for a burn that isn't really necessary. The larger water cooled ones have a reservoir that can leach argon into the bore and cause it to be over pressurized making them difficult or impossible to start. I will be pulling mine out again this winter as it throws off a lot of heat when I run it. I don't want to do it unless it is cold enough to warrant all that heat being in my house.

Oh, and + Rep.
 
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vk2fro

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Heheh yes they make a great heater in the loungeroom when its winter - I have recently often set mine up and run it on the workbench to warm the place up and flatmate comes home and goes "ohhh the house is nice and warm - have you been running your big laser" (he doesn't know as far as argons go, its actually a small one) :)
 

vk2fro

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Well she now looks the busniess - this Single line ILT was in pretty sad shape when I got it, had stickers all over it (which tore off paint when I removed them), but now has a new set of fans and so long as I don't move the umbilical, runs nicely. Next thing to address is that dodgy umbilical, and then a lick of paint, and it'll be as good as the day it rolled off the assembly line.

qJVLPLsm.jpg

oops - found another sticker - and a red stamp! fans look nice though!

oUx3nkUm.jpg

Other side - here we can see the majority of the paint damage. Most of it near the danger sticker and below that beautiful ILT logo. Since the power supplies match, I'll take the lid off one into my local hardware and have them make me up a tin of touch up beige. Then I can restore her while I wait till the bits to arrive to turn the fixed umbilical into a removable one (basically some AMP connectors.). For the paint job I'll take out my dremel and sand back the affected areas with a fine sanding drum, which will give me ultimate control of where sanding happens) then using a small paint brush add the new paint. Even if the colours are SLIGHTLY off, it'll look better than it does :)

Ran it last night at 7 amps for a solid 2 hours.
 
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When I start mine after a long rest, I let the cathode heat for about 10 to 15 minutes
like old radio tubes.
HM

and I see that I'm a new member :-(
 
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When I start mine after a long rest, I let the cathode heat for about 10 to 15 minutes
like old radio tubes.
HM

and I see that I'm a new member :-(

1st off... WELCOME! :D Great to have you with us! (wait a minute... you've been here forever! oooo, you fooled me. :p )

2nd, i'm not 100% convinced that That is necessary. i'm not sure when it it comes to Ar lasers but i've never let my ArKr "preheat" for more then maybe a minute and never had any issues with striking, and this poor thing has been neglected and abused over it's lifetime.
 

vk2fro

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Its a good practice as heated gas expands, so it kinda helps in starting - when I got my ILT's in I let the cathode heat the gas for 1/2 hour before I turned on the arc. Like you said probably not nessecary, but does help with a tube that could be a bit low pressure - heating the gas makes the pressure go up, and the cathodes in these things run at 1150C or so, so it can make a differents between wink wink wink and kapow beam on :)
 

JoshuaGonzalez

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What argons are you talking about here? May be any new that must be added into the list of the following?
 
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^^^ All Argons need to be run once in a while to keep them healthy. Mine has less than a 100 hours on it and I still run it every couple of months.
 
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Been way too long since either of mine have had a workout. I suspect my rectangular head will fire up easily but my cylindrical head will probably not fire at all or will be a class-1 %&%$ if it even fires. Need to run them sometime soon.
 
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Your argon should still be okay. These air cooled ones don't need to be exercised like the large water cooled ones do.
 




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