Neon Tube Power Supply for HeNe Laser?
Hey, with ‘neon’ in the name; how different can can a neon tube be compared to a helium-neon laser? Small discharge tubes are found in high-tech phones and other electronic sculpture. A typical unit would be perhaps 2 feet long and 1/4″ to 1/2″ in diameter. Modern power supplies for these tubes use an inverter to produce high frequency high voltage AC (not DC as required by a HeNe laser tube). Older ones will just use a mini version of a high voltage neon sign transformer. Since large inside diameter (compared to HeNe lasers) neon tubes don’t require a special starting voltage, this will be lacking in any such power supply. While it may be possible to adapt portions of one of these to powering a HeNe laser, this probably isn’t worth the effort. A rectifier, filter, starting voltage source, and ballast resistors would need to be added. With luck, the ballast resistance alone could be adjusted to set the tube current. Otherwise, additional circuitry possibly including regulation would be
