Good news! The laser tube, power supply and cooling system arrived yesterday.

The 80W tube is *MASSIVE* – even though I knew the dimensions before I ordered it, I guess my subconscious had chosen to ignore the fact of exactly how long this thing was going to be.

Hmmmm… I might have to move my router bed somewhere else.

First thing to do was hook up the active cooling system and take it for a spin. I put just under 2 gallons of distilled water in the tank and hooked the inlet/outlet ports together. Everything seemed good, water was flowing and the readout displayed 22 degrees centigrade.

It looked like the port connectors and tube connectors were different sizes, so the supplied pipe wasn’t going to do it. A quick trip to the local hardware store got me the following:

Watts SVHF10 (Clear vinyl tube) 10′ x 7/16″ OD x 5/16″ ID [x 2]

Watts A-277SH; SH-77 Hose barb adapter 5/16″ x 3/8″ [x 2]

Watts A-298 3/8″ Barb x 3/8 FIP [x2]

Teflon tape.

I was then able to hookup the laser tube to the chiller. Be very careful when connecting vinyl tube to the glass of the laser – it would be very easy to break it at this point. (Latex hose might be better).

So that’s got the cooling up and running.

The next challenge is hooking up the PSU and actually operating the tube.

Update :

That’s got the tube running successfully. Now I need to build an enclosure for it.

I’ve ordered another bounce mirror, due to space requirements I have to ‘fold’ the laser beam one more time before I can direct it towards the gantry.

It goes without saying – I’m wearing safety glasses throughout all the testing procedures.

So should you.