The red laser really struggled to cut through .22" plywood tonight. Even after 2-3 passes, it still didn’t completely cut through half of what I wanted. And just now, I set it to engrave on .19" plywood with the same settings I’ve been using, but I could immediately tell the depth of the engraving was too shallow than it should be. I’m wondering if it’s because the lens needs some cleaning? Unfortunately, I don’t know how to clean the lens, but I’m willing to learn to help maintain the machine moving forward if someone wants to teach me. I also don’t know if it’s because it’s at half the power right now with only 1 60-watt tube that’s operable? I tried reducing the speed a lot, and still, it couldn’t cut through most of the plywood.
That would likely be running on one tube, but I’ll check.
Cool. Thanks, Danny!
Settings ? Standard settings for .22 is around 2.4speed 100power 4-600 dpi z.15ish
I tried 2%, 1%, and even slower than 1% speed at 100% power. It still didn’t cut cut through half of my 2’x2’ sheet. Not sure what I might have done incorrectly.
Adding onto this thread instead of creating a new one. I’m cutting through .22 inch acrylic. The laser cut fine for a while but then I noticed it wasn’t cutting all the way through after about 20 minutes. After pausing and restarting the file it started cutting through again, but it lost power pretty quickly after that. It seems like it loses power after running for a while. The lens and mirrors were pretty dirty but not completely obstructed.
More wasted time and material today. This is killing me.
Ah that might be what happened to me, too, and why it didn’t cut through all of my material.
My question is is this laser still worth the effort and money we keep putting into it? It seems to need a complete overhaul/rebuild. This is the only piece of equipment I come here to use and it’s never working.
I left the piece of acrylic I was cutting by the guillotine paper cutter.
Sorry to hear people are having problems, this is the first I’ve seen in awhile, and we put a lot of hours on them regularly.
We are looking to do a complete refurb of Big Red very soon (surprisingly cheap).
As a note, Pearl can be utilized a lot more. That one is a straight 100W 32"x18".
Right now there’s a very strong priority to get the new laser Tarkin online. This one is very user-friendly (and maintenance-friendly) and it’s been really exciting, recently bench-tested producing 223W nominal on a REALLY tight beam, and I have replacement parts on everything. Recently @TravisGood joined the laser build team, bringing a lot of experience and energy and we’re stepping this up to grow our laser capacity in crazy good ways, and we’re putting together a comprehensive plan for lasers for the future
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I did a checkout of Red, I do see a problem that wasn’t there before. I will address it further on Monday, it’s red-tagged until then.
Thanks Danny!