Hughes laser info

Basic laser safety: do not look into laser beam with remaining good eye.

Run, don't walk, to

.

Matt Roberds

They are HeNe lasers with plasma tubes having Brester window snd external mirrors in the gold end-pieces. If you power these with a HeNe laser power supply designe for 2-4 mW lasers with red as positive, they shoud light up. But if you've removed and replaced the end-pieces, mirrors alignment is all messed up.

All asmples I've seen of these lasers have been dead due to air leakage.

The other blocks might be ballast resistors for the laser head. Measure the resistance between the fat and thin red wires.

I'd be happy to check out the lasers and blocks for you.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

Repair | Main Table of Contents:

+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: | Mirror Sites:

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

Thanks for the help. Partially disassembling one of the heads marked "BAD" (I removed the end caps...further disassembly would be difficult due to large amounts of RTC and thicker metal cylinders for mounting the ends press-fit into the thin-walled head... verified your description "They are HeNe lasers with plasma tubes having Brester window snd external mirrors in the gold end-pieces." The rubber blocks (I have four) are definitely power supplies...1. checked the resistance between red leads...reads as open. 2. Connecting thin black and red wires to a "AA" battery gives ~58vdc output b/w thick red and black (or thick red to block on end-they are connected) 3. With one of the laser heads connected to the thick red and ground, in parallel with my meter, and a 9v battery connected to the thin red and ground, the meter beeps (so output probably over the

500v the meter wants)...time to go find my HV meter...also when doing this, the HV line had no problem arcing to my hand when it got too close :) 4. I was able to peel back a little bit of the rubber, uncovering what appeared to be the ends of two transistors. 5. the thing does say "laser power supply"

Well the last comment clinches it I guess. :)

The input is not likely to be less than 6 VDC, most common would be 12 VDC.

You need 5-8 kV open circuit to start the tubes.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

Repair | Main Table of Contents:

+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: | Mirror Sites:

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

Right again! I had been trying it w/ a 9v battery, nothing from the laser tubes, but it can still give a pretty nice shock. Tonight I hooked up one of the supplies to a head and a 12v power supply I had laying around...No lasing :( but the tube did light up...blue (noncoherent) light came out the ends so it's def. not a good tube :( but I've got 19 more where it came from to try...not keeping my hopes up though, some of them had test dates written on them...1973...and not all of them were good even then. If you noticed my other post, my HV meter is out of comission at the moment...but since the tube lights up I figure I got the input voltage right. Don't know if the heads or the power supply have starters built in though...or is the higher starting voltage just something that happens naturally w/ the power supply? On another note, the supply I mentioned before that I was able to peel some rubber from...I worked on it some more and got a good amount off...If you want to take a look at it or know more about it for your reverse-engineering endeavours, let me know

It is most likely not a good tube but it's also possible the mirrors are misaligned since that is determined by how the end plates are mounted. You'll notices that they don't sit flush.

Yes, sorry about that. Probably should have warned you about the starring voltage - 8 kV or more.

In the power supplies.

Yes, definitely would be interested in a reverse engineerable power supply.

Thanks.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

Repair | Main Table of Contents:

+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: | Mirror Sites:

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.