I’m not seeing any updates here from the past week or so. What’s the current status of the tubes in Red?
Last week there was a handwritten note that one tube had been removed and it was running at half power - but no notice given here (in a new thread anyway).
EDIT: OK found this reference from 2 weeks ago:
Is that still the situation?
Yes that’s still the situation. we will have the pearl laser fully up after our Next work day (probably on the 14th of August)We are exploring other options for new lasers as well as getting the white Chassis in the woodworking going soon. Red is working pretty good with a single tube for now but I don’t think we will get the second tube repaired and we will end up phasing out that laser.
Thanks for that update.
If other lasers will eventually replace Red, I hope that air assist is included on those.
I’m unable to use Blue for my regular acrylic work because it flares up too much and the material gets too hot and ends up bent/misshapen.
If Red goes away, I’m gonna be quite sad as that bed size is ideal for the work I need to do (i regularly get 4x8 sheets of acrylic cut in four pieces - so 24x48 is super good)
Air assist is definitely on the requirement list for anything that we get to replace red. While not quite as big a bed, Pearl does have air assist and is fairly close to red’s full power, so hopefully that will help a bit once it’s fully up.
Quick reference for anyone who doesn’t already know:
Red - 120W (currently running at 60W), Air assist, 48"x24" bed
Pearl - 100W, Air Assist, 32"x18"
Blue - 60W, 32"x18"
Well, I can take the tube out of blue and load it into red to go back to 120W, that probably makes sense.
I’ve seen Blue be used a lot lately so I don’t think that would totally make sense. We need to have more than one operational laser or a very short turn around with only one and it didn’t sound like we have a clear lead on the fix for this tube when we spoke @dannym.
I’ve only used Red in its 60W state, so maybe I just don’t fully know what I’m missing there but it’s for the most part functional (had a ton of errors yesterday though that didn’t seem like they would go away with a second tube, separate post for those). I have been having to do two passes on 1/4" acrylic though.
Well, one plan would be to pull the tube from Blue and add to Red, then put Pearl where Blue is and use its exhaust and honeycomb table and revel in its 100W goodness. Not sure where the place the chiller, it needs airflow and the heat would just build up in the alcove unless it just vents outside, which makes a lot of sense but the diameter of such a duct would be huge. Both need 208V so it needs another phase over there.
I’d rather have pearl and blue then red and pearl. I don’t want to decommission our most consistent laser.
Just a side note; no wiring is going to take place until our workday on the 14th of August. unless another skilled volunteer wants to do it as Joe is not available until then.
If it means anything, I use the red laser the most because of its bed size. I make large scale pieces and would love if we could keep this size of a bed or bigger.
Thanks for the input yep bed size is definitely an important aspect on our laser plan.
@valerie Try 1.4speed 400 dpi 100 power z .15 (it should definitely cut through on one pass even with only one tube.)
Thanks @EricP I’ll try that. I hadn’t played around much with focusing the depth lower (was doing 100 power 1.6 speed 600 dpi and .21 z).