Having had a He-Ne laser tube for a while & the required power supply, it was time to mount the tube in a more sturdy manner. Above the tube is mounted with a pair of 32mm Terry Clips, with the power leads passing through the plastic top. The ballast resistor is built into the silicone rubber on the anode end of the tube. (Right).
Output power is about 1mW for this tube, which came from a supermarket barcode scanner from the 90’s. The tube is dated August 1993 & is manufactured by Aerotech.
Inside the box is the usual 2.2Ah 12v Li-Po battery pack & the brick type He-Ne laser supply. The small circuit in the centre is a switchmode converter that drops the 12v from the battery pack to the 5v required for the laser supply.
This is a small 120W power inverter, intended for small loads such as lights, fans, small TVs & laptop computers.
End cover of the unit, 12v DC input cord at the top, power switch & indicator LEDs at the bottom.
Opposite end of the unit, with the standard 240v AC 50Hz Mains output socket.
Cover removed from the top of the unit. Main power transformer is visible in the centre here, MOSFET bank is under the steel clamp on the left, the aluminium case forms the heatsink.
On the right is a KA3525 switchmode PWM controller & on the left is a LM324N quad Op-Amp IC. The buzzer on the far left is for the low battery warning.
PCB removed from the casing, with the MOSFET bank on the right hand side. Two potentiometers in the centre of the board tweak the frequency of the switcher & the output voltage.
An ICL barcode scanner from the 80s is shown here. This is the top of the unit with cover on.
Plastic cover removed from the unit showing internal components. Main PSU on left, scan assembly in center. Laser PSU & Cooling fan on right. Laser tube at top.
Closeup of laser scan motor. This unit scans the laser beam rapidly across the glass plate to read the barcode.
View of the bottom of the unit, showing the controller PCB in the centre.
The 3-phase motor driver circuit for the scan motor. 15v DC powered.
This is the laser unit disconnected from the back of the scanner. HT PSU is on right hand side, beam emerges from optics on left.
This unit is date stamped 1987. The oldest laser unit i own.
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