Reverse Engineering PR0N

I have tons of pictures from my teardown and reverse engineering efforts. I figure they’re worth sharing.

Kicking it off with some High Voltage components:

6 Likes

I’m going to annotate these power supply pictures, much like the ones I have on Github. I wanted to post them here in their original quality, unmolested. This way, if there is something someone is really trying to see, it won’t be blocked by the annotations (just the poor image quality).

BOARD_A

This board has voltage selection/power factor correction, provides the 400VDC used by all the other supplies, and the 12VDC accessory supply (everything outside the power supply that needs 12VDC).

TOP VIEW

BOTTOM VIEW

BOARD_B

This board has a 12VDC supply that drives a DC-DC converter that supplies 3.3VDC and 5VDC. It also has a separate supply that provides 40VDC and 60VDC, and another supply that provides the high voltage (driven by the 60VDC supply).

TOP VIEW

BOTTOM VIEW

ISOLATOR

This board isolates the high and low side for the 12VDC accessory supply on BOARD_A.

SUPERVISOR

This is a supervisory control/isolation board. It runs the supplies on BOARD_B.

DC-DC CONVERTER

This board converts the 12VDC supplied by BOARD_B into 3.3VDC used by the CNC control board and 5VDC used by the power supply supervisory circuits.

HV SUPERVISOR

This board controls the HV supply.

TOP VIEW

BOTTOM VIEW

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I really don’t understand why they make a 60V rail to feed the HV converter instead of driving it from the 400V rail. It means an extra winding, rectifiers and smoothing with associated losses and more losses in the LV rail switching transistors. All they seem to gain is being able to use lower voltage switching transistors and another level of isolation. I suppose having the control chip for the HV supply on an isolated supply means they can interface to it directly, but all that saves is one or two opto couplers, and that has been your downfall.

By request:

GLOWFORGE BOTTOM VIEW:

Notice the metal cover that runs across the middle. This is a wire raceway where high/low voltage and multiple signal cables and coolant tubes run. Because of this, it will be extremely difficult for an average user to perform a bottom cutout mod to gain additional working depth (aside from the focal range limitations of the stock head).

3 Likes

Just out of curiosity, what do the two smaller sheet metal tabs connect to?

They bond the metal strike plate that sits under the crumb tray to the left and right guide rails.

hmm, so how exactly does the air filter extract the EXHAUST without a hose, cause all I see is an intake?

The filter will come with a U-shaped tube that connects the GF’s exhaust to the filter’s intake.