There was an Argon Highlight and a Krypton Highlight before they reused the name for the fiber laser.
These were characterized by using a special low resistance resistor in series with the tube instead of a transistor pass-bank and pre-regulator. Your power output was proportional to line voltage using this scheme. The laser had one current setting that was line voltage dependent. It did not have light regulation, only current regulation. A combination of resistance and inductance was in series with the tube to form a passive current regulator. The coil that formed the series resistance was wound around the solenoidal magnet core. This was a development from Medical Innova Krypton lasers that had a magnet in series with the tube and current regulator.
If all you want is two line krypton red, having the magnetic field in series with the tube making field as the current goes up, is quite an advantage.
The goal of the Highlight Ion systems was to drop costs for certain laser show and lab customers that did not need tight regulation of the laser power.
One of the things you loose with this scheme is tube lifetime and power factor correction.
Steve
Last edited by mixedgas; 10-29-2021 at 13:00.
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When I still could have...