Cheap Ebay tubes

[Ernest Martin]

Has any body tried putting one of those ebay laser tubes in say an old Epilog Summit Machine. Just Wandering as those are a lot cheaper.

[Viktor Voroncov]

What do you mean? Chinese glass inside Epilog???? :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Larry Bratton]

I tried it and got a message on the menu screen...What! are u crazy?

[Dan Hintz]

Ernest,

Long ans skinny? This will not work. Epilog, ULS, Trotec, etc. use low-voltage, RF-excited metal tubes. The Chinese glass tubes are high-voltage direct drive. Both require vastly different power supplies.

[AL Ursich]

I tried it and got a message on the menu screen...What! are u crazy?:eek:

Good One....:D

[Ernest Martin]

Ok I know I'm Stingy but what if I replaced the Power Supply. But on Second thought I might be getting close to having my tube rebuilt

[Richard Rumancik]

If you replaced the power supply, then you could theoretically get it to lase but your main board/controller in the laser is expecting a certain type of interface between the control electronics and the tube. You can't assume that the Epilog controller or any Brand X laser system would be able to trigger the glass tube properly. Different laser tubes will require different interfaces.

I know that GCC Mercury series was originally designed with Synrad tubes but they decided at one point to offer Deos tubes - but that required different firmware because the tubes did not interface exactly the same way. But a glass tube is quite a different thing than a sealed CO2 RF-excited tube. That would probably require some different electronics.