How CO2 lasers wear

Discussions on optics for laser cutter/engravers

How CO2 lasers wear

Postby dren.dk » Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:40 pm

I'm finally getting to the point where my PhotonSaw http://psaw.osaa.dk starts to be useful and I'm worried about the voltage/current I'm measuring.

I'm getting 25 mA thorugh the tube and 37 kV across it at full power.

I measured the high voltage side using a 2 GOhm / 2.2 MOhm voltage divider and an expendable DMM with an input resistance of 1 MOhm, so even though I tried calibrating with a 60 V source, there's a good chance that the probe is a bit suspect at the high voltage.

According to various untrustworthy sources the current is about right, but the voltage is much higher than the norm.

Does anyone know how a worn tube behaves?

Will it start requiring more voltage to drive the same current while decreasing in efficiency, until finally the PSU can't keep supplying a higher voltage?
dren.dk
 
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