During the afterglow of the pulsed electron cyclotron resonance discharge, currents can be extracted, which are substantially higher than the ion current during the heating phase of the plasma. This is especially the case for the high charge states of heavy ions. An operating regime was found, which gives an extremely stable and reproducible afterglow. The variation from pulse to pulse is hardly visible and the long‐term stability is also very good. This mode, which made the setting up and operation of the accelerators much easier than is normally the case, can also give an insight into the processes responsible for the afterglow. An investigation of the shape and duration of the afterglow for the different charge states of lead is presented. A 1/&zgr;2dependence for the decay time of the afterglow was found for operation with oxygen, while no such dependence appears for operation with neon as the auxiliary gas. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.