Medical Argon Lasers???

[Laser Ben]

I'm in the mood to find a argon laser in a medical laser package. Have any of you had any luck getting medical lasers?I heard about someone here with a HGH 5. I believe that is single line? What specific models should I ask for? I also have a Lexel 88 I have my eyes on, it doesn't have a power supply or chiller. How difficult is it to get a power supply for that.

[DZ]

Go for the 88! You don't really need a chiller, you can hook it up to tap water. For a power supply, there was someone that was selling some about a year ago. I can't remember the website, but its a company called nightlight or something. I remember the price being rather reasonable.

[mixedgas]

I'm in the mood to find a argon laser in a medical laser package. Have any of you had any luck getting medical lasers?I heard about someone here with a HGH 5. I believe that is single line? What specific models should I ask for? I also have a Lexel 88 I have my eyes on, it doesn't have a power supply or chiller. How difficult is it to get a power supply for that.

HGM 5 comes in multiline or blue only, the blue only is a filter installed after the tube. Model 5 all lines is a american 68 tube with shortened brewster stems, the psu can do CW, but needs cooling boosted. A good system should deliver 3 watts for 30 seconds, and you can run it CW at about 500 mW after you boost the psu cooling. There is a mod for the control computer to make it CW, I only give it to people who actually own one for professional reasons, mainly I dont want to see hacked medical systems return to the medical market. There is a good reason for that.

The mod takes out the control computer and makes the upper current limit pot the current adjust pot.

be careful buying HGM argons, anything other then a model 5 or model 20 may be power on demand, which means the tubes cant run CW for more then 30 seconds without meltdown. especially small compact models like PC, K1, K5, PC-EDO, Surgica.

coherent model 900, 910,920 contain a stretched I90 tube.
just about everything else medical argon is a lexel product inside, except a few zeiss systems that have spectra 2016 sealed , there are a few biophysic systems out there with spectra 164 OEM in them, but those are very rare in working order.

Systems that have 88s mainly are from a company called Nidek

Biomedical engineers are usually idiots when it comes to lasers, and about 75% of the time a laser called dead has just been worked on, improperly cleaned optics, missaligned

I have a friend who is a medical laser service engineer, and he has 35+ 85S heads in stock and some PSUs.
85. PM me, he call sell you a working head in known new condition so you dont have to play the lottery.
Mind you, I've done well playing the lottery, only 1 in 3 is usually tube dead. He also has a home built PSu design thats low cost.

Steve Roberts

[buffo]

Great post, Steve!

Ben, I've got an HGM 5. (Pics in my gallery) I bought it off E-bay for $500 (plus $90 shipping), only to discover that the tube was up to air and basically useless. Fortunately, Steve managed to hook me up with another tube. But finding a tube otherwise would have been an *expensive* proposition. (Florian Rotter in Germany quoted me $2700 plus freight from Europe for a refurbished tube.)

I should warn you that the cooling modifications for an HGM 5 are not trivial! Without proper cooling you'll ruin the tube in about 5 minutes, so plan on spending some time (and money) building some ductwork and mounting some serious fans to keep it cool.

Also, the power supply needs to be modified to run CW, as Steve mentioned. So if you do decide to get an HGM 5, realize that you're *NOT* looking at a plug-and-play solution. Medical lasers are a mixed bag. You can get a deal, but you can also buy yourself a ton of extra work. (I've had this HGM 5 for over a year, and I've just now got all the parts I need to get it working correctly.)

On the other hand, a Lexel 88 (or even an 85) is a pretty reliable design, and there are several power supplies that will drive it. (Both single phase and 3 phase models are available.) Of course, you need water cooling, but like David said - you can use tap water and send it once-through and out to drain and it will work just fine. Apart from the hassle of hooking up a couple garden hoses, the Lexel is probably going to be easier to work with. (And it will make more power to boot!)

Adam

[The_Doctor]

Useful posts. I always liked the idea of having one of these but in the end the power consumption gets me, I don't think my mains supply will even start a serious ion laser. A LaserScope is a nicer idea for me, but I can't afford one...

[QUAZAR]

Another vote for the 88. Had one for as couple of years now and is a solid piece of kit.

[buffo]

I always liked the idea of having one of these but in the end the power consumption gets me, I don't think my mains supply will even start a serious ion laser.

Well, it might start one, but you probably wouldn't be able to ramp it up very far. In the UK your standard wall outlets are normally on what, 10 amp breakers? 15 tops? (Hey - at least they're 220V... Ours are just 110V, though they are usually fed off a 20 amp breaker.)

Over here the only 220V outlets we have are the electric clothes-dryer outlet (normally rated for 30 amps), and the electric stove outlet (which will get you 50 amps of 220V). The clothes dryer will run an HGM5, while the stove outlet will run anything up to and including a Lexel 88 - assuming you have a single phase power supply. (Clandestiny had an Aurora PSU at FLEM last January. He plugged it into the stove outlet at the venue and used it to fire up his Lexel 88 that was mounted inside his multi-turret beam table. 2 watts of Argon magic!)

Of course, even with a single phase PSU, you've still got the electric bill to contend with at the end of the month! (Then again, if you live in a cool climate, just tell your friends that it's not a laser, but rather a big space heater!)

As for me - I decided to just pull the front off the breaker box and stick another breaker in. I've got a small load center (some of you saw it at SELEM) that I can hang off a 60 amp breaker. It's got several 110V circuits that are on separate breakers, plus a single 50 amp socket that is on it's own breaker. That's what I'll be using to power my HGM 5 from now on. (Yeah, it's overkill, but I wanted to have something that I could also use to power up larger stuff at SELEM, or any other event for that matter.)

Adam

[QUAZAR]

In the UK, the supply for electric stoves/cookers is usually 30A (230V). Usually, the appliance is hard wired into a wall mount box. I modified the box and fitted it with a 32A CEE type industrial socket. The cooker was fitted with the correct plug to match.

This allowed me to have a safe and reliable supply to run my ALC68 and Lexel 88, (once the stove was unplugged). Being in the kitchen also sorted out the cooling water supply for the Lexel.

I dont recommend you do this unless you know exactly what you are doing.

[buffo]

Can you run your Lexel 88 at full tube current off a 30 amp 220V outlet? I would have thought you would need more source current than that.

What PSU do you have for your '88?

I agree that you need to know what you're doing if you're going to be playing around with your home wiring. I've wired a few houses (mostly new construction, but some renovation too) in my day, so I feel pretty comfortable doing it, but it's not a job for a beginner.

I'm intrigued that your stove outlets only source 30 amps. Is that a European standard? We've got some stoves here that would pop the breaker at 30 amps... Maybe your stoves are smaller? (Standard over here is 4 top burners at ~1500 watts each and 2 elements in the oven at 2000-3000 watts each.)

Adam

[The_Doctor]

Hell, even in the winter I'm not sure I can justify all that heat.. We don't really get a 'winter' as such...

Stoves here usually have rings of 1200W or 800W, though that might have changed in ten years or so since I last looked into it. Having the extra volts helps to reduce breaker current ratings needed for protection.