CO2 laser refurbishing

[Twospoons]

A friend of mine has given me the CO2 laser out of his laser cutter - the output has become weak, suggesting regassing is needed.  Sadly the cost of shipping to the US to get it refurbished is more than the cost of a whole new Chinese laser, which is why I've been given the old one.

The laser is a sealed 75W RF driven one made by SYNRAD in 1998. 
Its a beautiful thing, with a couple of RF drivers and a control board mounted in an extruded aluminium housing.   Reading the patents (patent numbers are on the outside of the case) it looks like internally the laser cavity also consists of aluminium extrusions, with transverse excitation from RF drivers operating at about 50MHz.

Has anyone here attempted to re-gas a laser?  I realise the original gas mix will be some proprietary secret, but generally its about 8-10% CO2 with the balance being nitrogen and helium. Sometimes a little Xenon is added, or some CO, both are meant to extend the life of the sealed tube. There's also usually a gas regenerating catalyst internally.

I know I'll never get it as good as the original, just trying to decide if its worth trying to regas it myself. Getting a few hundred hours per refill would be worth it.  Just need the gas handling valves, and a vacuum gauge, as I already have a pretty good Edwards vac pump.

[johnf]

Twospoons
Before you attempt this there is a crown in China who will regas this tube for you
we have one of these at work and we bought a new tube from syrad approx $8000US$
The chinese want about a 1000 dolllars to recondition it

[Twospoons]

Interesting. I'd need close to $1000 worth of gear to do the regas anyway.

[pache11]

There are other failures that can cause low power.  The tube or RF could have a high SWR(power not being able to be absorbed by tube or broken connection), Low RF power, damaged/misaligned optics, or failing power supply.  You could spend the money on regassing and without a guarantee still not have a working laser(Many of our customers have tried this remedy with poor results).  I do not work for a laser manufacturer, but design high speed laser cutting systems(100-1K watt) for the labeling industry.