Power supply and chiller for 180W CW YAG?

That is not a laser show laser as you can understand, it is used for metal marking! But it would be sweet to frequencydouble... :)

Anyway, I may have the possibility to get my hands on a Spectron Laser Systems YAG head including scanners that was used in a big industrial engraving machine.
It is just the head without powersupply and chiller so this will be a major project if I decide to try to get it going.

Does anyone have a hint about the voltage/current and cooling requirements that a laser this size may need?
I have heard of currents around 100Amperes and 20 or so volts.

This is a picture of the laser:
http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/4387/yaglaserrh7.jpg

The lamp housing & rod:
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/9605/pumphusvk4.jpg

I may buy it even if there is no possibility of getting it to work, there should be a lot of good parts in there!

Thanks!

Hi,

I think the arc lamp is the key,so you can contact with them.
http://www.heraeus-noblelight.com/

As I know,the power of the 120w cw laser is about 30A/200V DC ,the striking arc votage is over 20K votage.

So you can check the lamp and decided the chiller.

Good luck

Kalvin

Thanks for the information!
The laser head apparently comes with a new lamp in a box so I'll try to get the data off that lamp and see where that leads me.

If you need a cheap lowish voltage power supply, you could try rewinding a microwave tranformer. I have heard of people getting like 670A from those things. When you pull it out, its typically wound for about 2kV @ around 2A.

As for chilling, geesh your gonna need a damn good cooling system, maybe even phase change!

go over to perkin elmer and get the flashlamp guide, it has a arc lamp chapter. xenon short arc is 20V and 20-150 amps. If its a YAG, YOU have xenon long arc, a more typical number is 150-175V or more and 10-100 amps. You need 1-2 Kv across the lamp as a start boost plus a 15Kv high current ignite pulse. they have some specialized cooling requirements for a flow tube and flowing water to prevent localized boiling and cavitation. also for a explosion shield and usually a tube around the lamp that prevents UV from cooking the rod.

Steve Roberts

Thanks for the advise! I was kind of hoping that you would see my post...you know a lot about "real" lasers! :)
I'll see if I can get some more information about the actual components in this laser.