Hey I'm hoping someone might be able to help me here, I can't find much of a straight answer elsewhere online.. So I built a 100W laser cutter and used it somewhat sparingly over the last year; maybe an average of an hour a week or so, always kept the water chiller running, never used above 70% power. A couple days ago though, it all the sudden up and breaks out of nowhere! electricity started arcing on the ends and it looks like maybe a small hole got melted in the inner glass. I noticed a little water in the main glass area thats supposed to be airtight. I have no idea what happened. But anyways, the warranty was only 6 months, so I'm out of luck there, and I still have a bunch of Etsy Christmas orders to fill (I realize its too late now to get them done in time for christmas..). Anyways I guess the main part of my question is here. I found an 80W tube on ebay with free local pickup in my area, and I read somewhere online that you can use a one level down tube with a more powerful power supply, but not the other way around. So I can use an 80W tube with a 100W PSU, but not a 100W tube with an 80W PSU. Is that correct? If it is correct, do I need to do something like run it only at a max of 80% power? Or does it not work that way? If I run it at 100%, does it try to output more than 80W? I assume its bad for the tube? Although I was so careful not to go above 70% on my 100W tube to make it last longer and it ended up dying after only a year anyways, so now I feel like I wasted a lot of time I could have been cutting faster. I don't know, I thought the tube was supposed to last 10000 hours... Anyways, I really appreciate any help or insight you can give me! Of course I don't want the 80W tube to break immediately after getting it too haha.. TL;DR - Is it true that you can use an 80W laser tube with a 100 PSU? And if so, do you have to use it at special certain settings, like at 80% power? Thanks a lot!
YOu can use the the LPSU with no problem, only thing it is to be sure not to exeed the new tube current limits, do you have an ammeter installed? what controller are you using?
Thanks for the help! I do have an ammeter installed, but I've actually never gotten it to work properly. The PSU I have shows how many milliamps it's outputting though. Do you know what the current limits are for an 80W tube? The controller I have is the AWC708C
A 80w tube normally a 1250mm long 80mm dia. the max recommended is around 26-28 mA, to be in the safe zone Ill recommend a max of 25mA, in the awc708 set your max laser pwr % at 50 test fire and red the mA then increase that % until you reach 25mA, are you running your trocen with lasercad?
Ok perfect! Thanks I'll do that! The tube I ended up getting was a Yongli A2s (90w Co2 Laser Tube-yongli A2s 11000 Working Hours - Buy A2s Laser Tube 80w,Chinese 90w Laser Tube,Co2 Laser Tube 90w Product on Alibaba.com). Some places it says 90W, and others it says 80W, but the size and everything seems to align more with 80W tubes so I don't know. And yes I'm using Lasercad. Do I need to change the settings to 50% directly on the controller? Or is it alright if I just set it in lasercad? Thanks so much! I appreciate your help!
In lasercad you can modify your manufacturer settings or direct into the controller just be sure to lower that max, the controller/manufacturer settings is not the same of the output you choose on the job, so be sure to modify those settings and that way you will increase your tube life a lot longer cheers.
Ok I think I get it. So I use lasercad to modify like the maximum output settings so that no matter what I put in the output for the job, I'll never exceed that number so I won't damage the laser? Thanks so much I really appreciate your help! So I just have one more question I'm hoping someone will be able to help me with. I've installed the new tube, and I ran the water chiller to fill the tube with water and after it gets fully filled and there's no bubbles at all, I started pulsing it at like 3mA to align the mirrors and everything, but after like 5 minutes, thousands of tiny bubbles start appearing all along the tube. Now I'm told bubbles are bad and could damage the laser so I don't want to fire it with the bubbles there, but I've tried everything I can to get rid of them. I've even emptied the water chiller and replaced all the water with new distilled water from the store. Is there a way to get rid of all these bubbles? Thanks so much! Sorry for all the questions. I just want to be extra careful this time because I don't want to pay for a third tube...
Put like two drops of dish washing soap in your reservoir, that will soft the walls of the tube, tiny bubbles up two 2mm dia you dont have to worry about those !!!
Wait I'm sorry just to be clear; like dish soap for hand-washing dishes? Or like dishwasher detergent? I'm assuming the soap, but my brother asked me and all the sudden I wasn't sure haha.
