LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

So I asked you guys here it was the ps or the tube that was bad (turns out it was the HV supply) and ya'll got me going in the right direction (thank you all so much). However, I'm now seeing visually different results with the new one, so was going to install an ammeter to see if the tube's getting the correct current. Is this the best diagnostic step I could do short of getting a 200$ laser power meter? Would https://www.amazon.com/Karcy-Rectangle- ... r=8-2&th=1 suffice? It goes up to 30 and I saw most people stay around 20-25 but I didn't know if there are any other requirements that would need to be met to not blow the thing out

Mine are all 50mA meters... 30 will probably work. You might want to look into Russ' power meter... Much cheaper and does a different job.

Is there anything else I need to make sure of other than that it has the required amps? I wont have any values to compare to from beforehand, but it's a 50W (48W actual) tube. Do just all tubes run around 20-25A? or is it dependent on the power of the tube?

Oh wow, I'm dumb. The HV was set to 230 instead of the 115... Immediately shot through the acrylic I was using to test (before the flip was like 'boiling' the top layer). Sorry for being dumb guys!