Sorting through all the information I can find - both here and elsewhere - on power supplies for these things…
I’d like to step up to a 50w tube. As it happens, my current power supply (it was punavoidable) is a 50w, powering what was a 40w tube. Even though it always seems to be a good idea to have a heftier power supply than needed, do you think I’d be okay running a 50w tube on the 50w supply? I know that sounds kinda silly, but my concern is running the PS at near-max capability all the time, with no ‘breathing room’.
Compounding the issue is trying to suss out the connectors on a bigger PS to make sure I’ll get everything connected properly; it would be less of a headache if I could simply replace the tube, right now.
I assume you have a K40 type machine?
I haven’t seen any of these new that would produce 40W, generally the tube isn’t large enough to produce this much power.
The way these work is that the laser power supply increases it’s voltage until the tube starts conducting at it’s trigger voltage. Then the actual current produced by the lps is limited.
Many of the larger dsp type controllers have only three wires going to the lps, ground, pwm and laser enable. I don’t know of any smaller boards that actually generate a pair of signals to control the lps.
Since I can’t read you profile and have no clue about what kind of machine you have, I can’t add much else.
Photos are also good.
So your largest concern is whether it will accelerate the time when you have to replace the LPS?
If you want to hedge against the cost of an LPS going up, you can buy a replacement now but not install it until you need it. But otherwise, replacing it before you need to replace it is basically wasting lifetime of a wear-limited part, unless you find out that in practice it is overrated and won’t actually excite the tube you get…
Don’t fix what ain’t broke?
Well, you can compare to pinouts for supplies here:
But I’d just do that to know that when you do need to replace the LPS, it shouldn’t be horribly hard.