"The Quest for the Copper Vapor" - Oregon to Massechusetts and back.

[Laser Ben]

True, I guess that van is for 7 people so 7 250 pound people plus the seats would be over the weight of the laser. Makes sence!

[GooeyGus]

Dont forget, we have lots of 3-phase up here to power that thing

It's a monster... I really need to see that in person.

[sugeek]

Jonathan,

You are also welcome to stop by on your way back, I am right off of I-84. Then again I am also probably 20-30 minutes (guessing) from your house you may want to go strait home). The roads really aren't that bad here but the ice that will be in place the next couple of days won't be fun. I have a loading dock but no 3-phase .

Adam

[Laser Ben]

How do you go about safely testing that? I mean, it's overly lethal power, what if it starts arcing?

[buffo]

Forget about testing it. He's going to go through a couple hundred bucks in neon just purging it first. Then he's got to tweak everything inside the cavity.

But yeah, once he throws the HV on, he better not touch anything inside or it will kill him. (As Clandestiny about the dangers of CVL's... They're a lot more lethal than CrBr lasers.)

As for the actual test, arcing would be the least of my worries. The case will be grounded, and you can always kill the breaker at the wall if something arcs inside. (Worst case, if you're jacked directly into the mains, you can even lift the legs hot.) It runs on 208 3 phase, which isn't all that bad to deal with. Really, the supply side isn't much different from a good sized argon. The head, on the other hand, is totally different. (And more dangerous.)

Adam

[platinum]

According to Steve, I should be able to use welding helium. I'm not going to do anything until I convince Oxford (who happens to have offices not more than 40 minutes from where I bought the thing, by the way) to give me some sort of manual.

-Jonathan

[tocket]

What's the tube voltage and current of these things?

Had you lived in Sweden I could probably have gotten you some free argon/helium/neon/fluorine/whatever... being a chemist and all. We have a couple of big argon tubes at least; very pure stuff.

[300EVIL]

Hey guys!
Well, I needed to get a little rest before posting. Platinum and I were on the road for 5 days and got very little sleep. Here is the full story on our trip.

Jonathan arrived on Wednesday, if I remember correctly. Due to his electrical issues, his van broke down 30 miles away from my place and I had to pick him up. I drove my van over to the gas station where he was and picked him up. Ironically, the van I used has the same exact problem his van has, alternator light goes on and engine dies! We stopped at a local Walmart and bought a battery jumper box and were able to limp back to my place.

We stayed up till about 3AM watching light shows and eating barbecue.
Jonathan is not quite sure about this....



He likes them!





The next day we spent many hours working on his car. We checked this that and the other thing and determined that the alternator just wasn't charging the battery. We even ran my diagnostic machine on it and could not determine why it was running intermittently.

Here's Jonathan all happy about being stuck in the middle of nowhere....


After a long hard day of dealing with my vehicle problem along with is (out in the freezing Wisconsin weather) We called it a day and drank some beer and did some posting and internet research on the problem. we also had fun too! I think we were up until 5AM.

I ended up finding some good test procedures to attempt on the internet the following day. Both of us were about to give up. Either take the damn thing to a real mechanic or buy a new vehicle just so he could get back home.

So, Thursday comes and we go ahead and try this test. Unfortunately it requires pulling the alternator that Jonathan installed 100 miles ago. We get the alternator un-bracketed and realize the field generator connector is just dangling in the alternator socket! We went ahead and checked continuity to the ECU for good measure and bent the connector leads tight and made sure that fucker was plugged in good.

Sure enough that solved the problem! We then put everything back together and were ready for a test drive when we noticed the trans was leaking like a sieve!

So, we go out and buy a new trans filter/gasket kit along with some fluid and go to a local warehouse I do specialty work on remanufactured copiers to get out of the cold and snow. We replaced the trans filter and gasket and the leak was stopped.

After all that we want back to my place and consumed more alcohol, ate some barbecue and commenced to shoot the shit. After a while Jonathan was pretty sure he could finish the trip. I told him I’d go with him if he was up to it. From there we agreed to do it and started to get ready for our journey!

We hit the sack around 12AM and got up at 5AM on Friday to head out. I got very little sleep on account of the Viso (energy drink) Platinum got me hooked on.

We drove about 30 miles on a 9 degree morning and realized the engine temps were not good for highway travel so we had to stop at a gas station and add some cardboard to the radiator.



From there we proceeded to drive to Chicago.



Here we are driving through the windy city.... cold and windy... [IMG]file:///C:/Users/ADAM/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image003.gif[/IMG]









More to come...

[mixedgas]

as I understand it, 7 kW in, 40 watts of light out, 6Kv at the thyratron. 12 khz rep rate, 200 nanosec pulse. prefers a neon/helium mix, although I dream about converting it to copper HyBrid:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t44w0g0841k12450/

of course any of C.E. Little's gas mixes are very interesting! The guy has the world record in non argon gas based green.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t44w0g0841k12450/
Steve

[sugeek]

I just can't wait to have the pictures from Hologeek's house and mine (to be posted ???)! When are you going to be back in the PDX/Vancouver area Jonathan?! I will be out of town Saturday, I have to check out a nice 5-7+W CW 532 DPSS laser (before the Q-Switch, watch out beam stop!). I have cider, wine, beer, and a huge river within less than a mile... Second exit after troutdale. I don't have my argon laser here to match AkronLEM (I need a PSU *^%$@~). but I do have a HeNe and an ALC60x (I will bring it up on the way back)! Well and a bunch of red and blue LED's, IR Cameras, and Diode lasers... I might even have extra eggs from my lovely ladies (chickens)! Currently balmy at 38 degrees here, tomorrow probably less but compared to where you are...

-Adam