Ok, so I practiced with my X7 Pro while waiting for my A20 (same as X20 but blue) to arrive. It arrived a few months ago but I only fired it up for the first time the other day and I put it straight to use. It was busy all day on a single burn that took 8 hours including some intensive 100% power to (try to) cut the shape. It failed but when I switched it off it was working. I cancelled the job manually and re-homed the head and went to bed.
Next morning, I set up another job freshly impressed from it’s first magnificent job and everything works, the head moves to position and starts making the right moves but there’s no laser beam…at all.
I’m using the Y connector that powers the machine by splitting the output from the 24v power supply between the machine and the air pump. I did have some trouble with the machine stopping several minutes into the job and figured my old powered usb extension lead was either failing or dropping signals so I transferred the job to the memory card and printed the job off from that (which I have more questions about for another thread). The job printed for 6 hours straight from the memory card without a single glitch so I definitely suspect my USB length and extension for that but the no power to the laser is a mystery.
China got straight back to me (colour me surprised) and suggested it might be the power supply. It needs to be 24 volts. I don;t have a multimetre and wouldn’t know how to use one if I did (though I’m sure I can find the how to online).
Before I hop in the car and go and buy a multi meter…could this be something else? Is there something I might have inadvertently turned off or need to check? I checked the power level of the layer and it’s not zero, It’s set where I set it at 80%.
The machine is less than 10 hours old. Fresh out of the box. Did I maybe kill it by using it at 100%? Even though I had the gcode files set to 80% power the screen read like it was burning 100% at 100 speed. If that’s the case then it was operating for over 8 hours at 100%. The whole nozzle area was full of oily soot (after just this one first job in it’s life) so I removed the head and used the little brush to clean up a bit. Could I have damaged the pins or socket of the signal cable? They look straight enough to me. Because the machine is getting power. Just the laser isn’t firing.
I have orders waiting (that’s why I fired it up eventually). If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to ask me to check anything.