Synrad / Laakman 10W CO2 Laser...

[heruursciences]

OK the fuse is 15A 250V fast acting, sort of odd package type one. The red and black are 36V at about 10A in 12V on board is 12V at about 5A or so, and the 5V input is 5V at about 300mA. The RF preamp board must be grounded and heat sunk or the medium power Rf transistor will fry. Make sure the RF power fet has a fully wetted solder connection and good ground/heatsinking to the laser tube or it will self-destruct

[300EVIL]

I may be mistaken, but it looks like you have a Class E Rf amp (that big FET) bolted to the laser heatsink and a seperate class C rf amp on the board. Do you have a ham radio operator friend nearby, that has a RF wattmeter ?

Yeah, I have an analog RF meter here that will go to 100W. Unfortunately i "had" some really good RF buddies but they both passed away. I do know a guy with an RF spectrum analyzer but he's over an hour away. I may use him for tuning my output when I get the laser up and running.

BTW< the RF is channeled for 27.120, and cb channel 14 is 27.125 Mhz. You want to jam some CBers, it looks like you have about 20-30 watts, and they have 4 max.

So I'd make sure your not radiating, least 4 biker dude truckers want to bust down your door at 4 am.
If the tube lights, its adsorbing the energy and your not radiating that much.

"Breaker, Breaker 10,600nm!"

What the hell are you gonna do with 10W of CO2... Mix it with that Ruby? Be an intersting optic.

Burn stuff... What else! I've actually always wanted to own a CO2 to learn about them. I'm also gonna get a crash course in RF pumping which is cool as well. I'll probably get bored of them after I get it running.

OK the fuse is 15A 250V fast acting, sort of odd package type one. The red and black are 36V at about 10A in 12V on board is 12V at about 5A or so, and the 5V input is 5V at about 300mA. The RF preamp board must be grounded and heat sunk or the medium power Rf transistor will fry. Make sure the RF power fet has a fully wetted solder connection and good ground/heatsinking to the laser tube or it will self-destruct

Great! Exactly the info I was looking for. Do I have to feed the FET 36V or can I get away with 24-48VDC? Should I use heatsink compound between the FET and the laser chassis and, if so, should I use conductive paste or indium for a better ground?
Thanks Again!
Adam

[300EVIL]

The fuse socket is for a TR5 fuse. The largest fuse I can find in this package is 10A @ 250V. Any suggestions?

I did find this and it should work in place.... I think. http://search.digikey.com/scripts/Dk...&name=F2352-ND

[heruursciences]

10A 250V should work OK

[300EVIL]

OK the fuse is 15A 250V fast acting, sort of odd package type one. The red and black are 36V at about 10A in 12V on board is 12V at about 5A or so, and the 5V input is 5V at about 300mA. The RF preamp board must be grounded and heat sunk or the medium power Rf transistor will fry. Make sure the RF power fet has a fully wetted solder connection and good ground/heatsinking to the laser tube or it will self-destruct

Hi Chris,
Okay, I almost have this head ready to go. Tell me more about the 5V input. I see it runs to an opto-isolator. Instead of supplying the 5V, can I just defeat the circuit? If so, do you know how? Also, is the full +12V to the modulation full power or is it reversed? Can I run the FET on 20V @ 10A to just get it running? It should, Right?
Thanks!
Adam

[300EVIL]

Okay, I'm almost there.... I now have a BNC connector wired to the head with a coax running to the pre-amp.







I have the 12V @ 10A wired to the pre-amp main inputs and a small run to the modulation input. I also have 30V @ 10A running to the FET. I get the green LED light at "MOD OK" and a red LED light on the FET power board. Now I just need to get the "RF OK" light to come on. Supposedly I have to put +5V to the collector on the opto-isolator to the far right of the board to get it to work but it's not.

Any Suggestions?

[300EVIL]

Oh, Don't mind the tiny heatsink on the pre-amp. It's just there for short tests. I plan on putting a bigger one on once I know it is working.

[heruursciences]

The ground of the RF board should have a free flow GROUND connection to the laser tube chassis, if not back EMF will shut the pre-amp unit off to protect it.

[300EVIL]

Hey Chris,

Thanks for your reply. The ground of the RF board is the same as the ground on the laser head chassis as I'm using a BNC connector between them. The ground was also verified with an continuity check. Anything else I should consider?
Thanks!
Adam

[300EVIL]

I did a little research and it seems these lasers come in sets of seven in a Domino DDC3 laser coding system used to put lot numbers on products at high speed. They use 7 CO2 laser heads in a fashion, kind of like the solenoid head on an old dot matrix printer.

Here is what the RF driver boards kind of look like when they are in one piece (different amplifier). Now I see why they were cut up and individualized.



Now, If I could only get the damn thing to work!