VersaLaser VL200 Help Needed - Carbon Filter

My VersaLaser VL200 with accessory air cleaner cart says it's carbon filter is expiring (6% life left). It needs an 18 digit activation code to reset the counter. There's nothing physical in the filter that tracks this, and there's all of probably $20 of activated carbon in there. Yet, Universal Laser charges over $300 for a new filter.

The "life" is tracked only by the hours the machine runs. Unfortunately, I think this is tracked internally on the machine's electronics, not on computer software.

Does anyone have any clue on how to acquire the 18 digit code or how to reset this thing? I have a new filter sitting on the shelf, but I have no activation code.

I am not willing to fork over another dime to ULS for a few digits to punch in a keyboard, to keep using something I've owned and used for over 10 years.

Thanks in advance.

Wow, that is akin to taking your computer hostage with a virus, and making you pay to restore it to service. Seems like a shady business practice to me.

From my searching, it seems like not too many people own these. Or if they do, they don't post much online. What I found is that the air cleaner blower cart has a Cypress EZ-USB microcontroller board inside that connects to the VL200 over USB. It does three things: monitors two differential pressure sensors or switches with pressure taps to each side of each filter (hepa and carbon), logs usage hours, and activates or deactivates a solid-state relay that turns the blower motor on or off. There's a EEPROM chip on the board, and I bet that's where activation codes and usage hours are stored. Unfortunately, I do not have the capability to dump that EEPROM, but I bet I'd learn a lot by doing so.

Since the air filtration cart is an optional accessory, you can simply unplug the USB cable, and the VL200 will still run. But then you have the issue of no exhaust. So, what I did temporarily is wire the blower motor straight to 120V input power, and I manually turn it on and off with a power strip. I've lost the capability to monitor the differential pressure sensors, but that's okay for now since my filters are new. What that used to do was stop the machine if it sensed filters were clogged and there was not enough air flow through them.

In the long run, I'd like to replace the Cypress microcontroller board with something like an Arduino or ATTiny to control the blower solid state relay. Since I don't know the USB communication protocols and sigals between the VL200 and accessories, what I plan to do is just use the air compressor's relay activation circuit to also trigger the blower relay. I could have the new microcontroller measure the pressure sensors too, but I'd need to wire an output back to the laser's pause button or something.

Of course I'd still prefer to just figure out what the dang code is, without forking over a ridiculous sum of money for a new carbon filter with a code.