Removing rubbery potting compound

That sounds like a real pain. If you can use a long drill to drill a tunnel parallel to the tube, you might be able to saw around the tube with some piano wire.

Even hard epoxy is no real matter when it comes to reverse engineering if you are willing to destroy the thing you are analyzing. I've found that it's quite brittle stuff, and applying pressure in the right places with a bench vise will usually cause it to crumble. Some components will get broken in the process but they can usually still be identified.

is

in the

In that case would mounting a vacuum chamber around the outside give enough force for air pressure to shift it. Or compressed air around it with appropriate seal? With some nearby soft physical restraint of course for if it does move.

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

How about using a thin blade from a coping saw? Once you manage to slip it all the way through the length of the cylinder it should work fairly well. I don't think it'd damage the glass either.

That's what someone else did, but the important part is really the cylinder. I'd like to get the tube out intact as well, but the solution of last resort is to simply smash the tubes. Yes, I know, that's going to upset the gods of dead lasers, but we'll see how the alternatives work out! :)

Thanks!

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Yeah, that's been my thinking as well. I don't like chemicals and anything that would get through several inches of the close-fitting cylinder would almost certainly be rather ansty.

Whether a coping saw blade is optimal I don't know, but something that can be forced through and then fastened at both ends with enough "teeth" to be able to eat away at the rubber.

Thanks!

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Please note the adverb in my original post.

I've lost track of how long the laser tube is. If you can thread dental floss along the length of the tube you can saw the tube out with the floss.

My coping saw blades are only 6 inches long, I doubt they come any longer as only intended for small light work.

After drilling a pilot hole I would try one of these sort of wire saws

fed through and then bodge fixed in a 12 inch hacksaw frame for rigidity.

Or straightened out bit of heater element wire

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

Might I suggest a flexible wire saw such as this one:

or this

Perhaps you could stretch the saw between two fixed vices having first threaded the tube over it, then work it back and forth while rotating it to cut throught the rubber compound.

Ron(UK)

Interesting thought. At least that's something I have. :)

I have a feeling it is going to be something along those lines.

Thanks!

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Or a guitar string, the rough coily type.