Manual Fill Procedure

WARNING: This fill procedure; if carried out improperly can create an over pressure tube. Use this procedure at your own risk! If You have ANY questions on how to perform this procedure contact us.

DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGES ARE PRESENT. IF YOU ARE NOT EXPERIENCED WITH HIGH VOLTAGE CIRCUITS, DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS PROCEDURE. ALL MEASUREMENTS ARE REFERENCED TO LINE VOLTAGE.

Pressure critical lasers are shipped with the fill system disconnected. As shown below.

If your fill system has been disconnected and your laser starts but gives a "Low Pressure" indication, turn all power off to the laser, connect the fill system. On Innova systems ( shown ) it is only a matter of moving the "Fill" wire from the spare terminal to the fill terminal. Other systems typically plug in to a mating connector. Turn your laser on and allow the auto fill electronics to take over. You can monitor the progress of your fill system by connecting a Digital Voltmeter as shown below to the laser tube.

DO NOT CONNECT YOUR METER PRIOR TO THE START OF YOUR LASER. YOUR METER AND YOUR LASER WILL BE DAMAGED FROM THE INITIAL START PULSE!!!!!

Allow the laser to fill until the desired tube voltage is obtained per your "Laser performance and Specification sheet " Supplied with your Remanufactured laser. OR Call us and we will be happy to help you with the correct tube voltage for your system, whether we have serviced your laser or not.

Lasers that do not start OR do not give an under pressure warning

Make sure your laser does not have any electrical problems. Many times a laser is filled only to find out the fault was within power supply or building services to the laser system. FILL YOUR LASER WITH GAS ONLY AFTER CONFIRMING ALL ELECTRICAL AND COOLING PARAMETERS ARE WITHIN TOLERANCE.

All ion laser systems can sometimes get to a pressure were the tube voltage actually rises, giving a false reading to the auto fill system. When a laser goes VERY low in pressure the tube voltage reaches a low point and then drastically increases. After this point one of four events can take place;

The tube fails to start on the next turn on. Due to insufficient gas pressure.
The tube starts and then cracks. Due to the arc "blooming " and cracking the ceramic body of the tube.
The Brewster windows become contaminated- reducing power.
The tube "winks out" ( this can also occur with a faulty cathode emission )

As you can see a very low pressure tube is not to be taken lightly. Catch it before it gets too low in pressure. The tube can be recovered from all the above except for item 2. If you are not sure , call us, we will help you.

Review the below and understand the procedure BEFORE starting.

Disconnect all the wires all the solenoid wires as shown.
Connect ONE lead of your voltage source ( approx 100 volts, DC Preferred )to the common wire of both solenoids.
The OTHER lead is TOGGLED MOMENTARILY between the ready wire coming from the solenoid to the FILL wire of the solenoid as shown. You well here a click (for DC) when properly executed.
This is considered one fill cycle. The fill system is a miniature sampling tank. The ready valve puts a little "packet" of gas into the sampling tank. The fill valve empties the sampling tank into the tube. DO NOT OPEN BOTH VALVES AT ONCE!!! This will dump all the gas in the fill reservoir into the laser tube causing and unrecoverable overfill condition.
Repeat this procedure 5 cycles. Try to start your laser. If it does not start, repeat again , to a maximum of 5 times.
When your laser does start you will either decide to connect the auto fill as mentioned above OR use a digital voltmeter and actually measure the tube voltage as you manually fill the tube.