So I have a new Aeon Nova Elite14 130w machine, mostly for the bed size and since I’m mostly cutting I decided to go for more power.
The performance of the 80w Chinese Red&Black seems to be better than the 130w and I’m trying to figure out why.
The 22mm foam seems to be cutting cleaner, and quicker on the 80w, than on the 130w. To get all the way through in one pass requires the below settings.
I can’t quite understand… Should the 130w not outperform the 80w for this task?
Both have 2.5" lenses (4" is on the way for the 130w)
Both have near enough the same amount of air supply going through the nozzle. The amount of air flowing from the nozzle tip feels the same on both machines.
80w Tube Power begins at around 10% and maxes out at around 80% (mA fails to improve past around 24mA/82% power).
130w Tube Power (cert shows topping out at 143w) begins at around 20% and maxes out at around 95% (mA fails to improve past around 34mA/95% power).
Both machines have decent alignment, but could be better.
80w has no auto-focus
130w has auto-focus which works very well
I focussed at the top of the material for both 20mm square test pieces.
If I’m missing something, or there are other tests I can complete, please let me know! I have been assuming this new laser would wipe the floor with the 80w, but the 80w appears to outperform the new one…
Using a surface focus, goes from bad to worse over the next 19mm of material.
A 4" is better, but it’s depth of field increases to 7.6mm, hardly enough to keep it in focus with a 22mm thickness, but better than under 3mm.
I’d suggest, it would probably help to focus at the halfway point into the material for any material thicker than your depth of focus. No matter which lens you use. This puts more power on each side of the focus depth.
properly working tube
clean and aligned optics
proper focus
If you have these three, they work
If both machines are not equal in alignment, it could affect your results…
When your cut barely gets through the material, are you left with what looks like pulse marks? I’ve never noticed this on my 80w, it either cuts through or scores and never leaves a pulse-type mark. Is this frequency related?
Also, rgds airflow I became somewhat convinced there was not enough, due to molten foam sticking back together once cut, whereas the 80w used to cool it better (with a smaller pump…)
On the 130w machine, the connection from air hose to nozzle inlet has a 2mm hole (more or less) which doesn’t seem large enough of a diameter to let any decent amount of airflow into the nozzle chamber - the 80w has around 3mm, including through the 90deg elbow inlet connection. I also query whether the concave cone shape is better or worse when compared to the convex shape on the 80w, which is the machine that outperforms…
