Your mention of the "focus" button makes me wonder if it might be like my Philips PCS150, which includes a built-in timer. The PCS150 has a button that's pushed to start the timer and a slider with "stand by" (off), "adjust" (normal filter settings), and "focus" (full brightness) buttons. I found a photo of the Durst AC 650 on
this German eBay auction. The photos not clear enough to be sure, but it looks like it might have a timer (the dial in the upper-right corner of the head, or possibly the leftmost one in the row beneath it). If that's what it looks like to you but none of the other buttons activates the timer, then perhaps you're overlooking a main "on/off" switch, or perhaps the relevant button is broken. With any luck it could be a simple soldering job to fix it.