Tube refill

[Dave West]

I'm about to aquire an old Epilog Profile 25 watt engraver with a Synrad series 48 tube in it. I'm thinking ahead to when I need to replenish the tube. The series 48 isn't proprietary to Epilog is it? Synrad states they do a "simple and inexpensive gas refill". I see posts about new tubes you guys have bought, but few about refills and was wondering why.

Thanks,

Dave

[Mike Mackenzie]

Dave,

I would be very careful about that system get the serial number of the tube and contact Synrad give them the serial number and make sure that it is repairable and at what cost. Chances are with a system that old the tube is obsolete and synrad won't touch it.

[rick woodward]

Hey Mike
If its that old of a machine would it also only run on windows 98 ? Just a thought.

[Darren Null]

By an odd coincidence, I was talking to Synrad yesterday about my Synrad J48 series tube, made in 2002, and they still service that one.
You won't get an official quote because often regassing is often not the only required repair, apparently. Assuming regassing ONLY for my tube (10W) I'd probably get change from $1000, but not much. A new tube (L series- the current replacement) is $2500.

I've no idea how that translates to larger tubes. It's well worth emailing synrad (custservice@synrad.com) and checking first. They were very quick and very helpful to me.

[Rodne Gold]

Most of the failures of our synrad tubes were the RF board , the parts to repair cost pennies and synrad will send you a document on how to do it , however you need some specialised oscilloscope and a off board power controller to "tune" the 2 RF power boards and that is beyond the scope of most of us.

[Peck Sidara]

Dave,

Epilog offers replacement Synrad J48 tubes for ALL Profile systems. The replacement will come directly from the factory. Epilog is currently getting the J48 tubes repaired/recharged thru Synrad directly so I can't imagine Synrad turning you down for service.

If its that old of a machine would it also only run on windows 98 ? Just a thought.

Rick, The Profile is capable of running off of windows XP/2000/Vista (32bit) as well as Windows 95/98/ME. For the 32-bit OS's, the Profile uses the Radius Win32 driver that's available for download on our website. (The Radius was the Profile's bigger brother or you could say the Profile was the table top version of the Radius)

Note: As long as Synrad is offering repair/replacement parts for the J48 tubes, we'll pass the service along to our customers. However, we can not guarantee just how long Synrad will continue to service the J48's.

HTH

[Richard Rumancik]

You won't get an official quote because often regassing is often not the only required repair, apparently. (snip)

They will probably replace or rework the RF boards while they have it open, because as Rodne mentioned, the RF boards are a main source of failures. Some of this was caused by OEMs or users applying incorrect operating voltages, which damaged caps on the RF boards. So they came up with some redesign to make the RF boards more immune to voltage variations. I assume they want to put this change in every refurbished laser, whether it actually "needs" it or not. Probably a good idea . . .

[Darren Null]

When I was talking to Synrad, 'blown optics and dead RF' were mentioned as causes for extra expense when regassing. From context, I got the impression that Synrad just do something if the thing needs doing. I suppose it depends on the budget and wishes of the customer. Replacing the RF board with a better one might be worth it in the long term if it's prone to failure though.

On a related subject, we also touched on the subject of homebrew power upgrades. The quote: "A lot of folks try this, not that many succeed".