This spring I bought a 130W laser tube from Vevor. It has run for about 10 hours and has mostly been used for engraving and cutting 3 mm plywood.
Suddenly, during a job today, the laser could no longer cut through 5 mm plywood. In order to succeed, I now have to do two passes at 28 mA and 10 mm/s.
The lens looks fine, and the beam is aligned to the center of all mirrors. I assume the laser tube has somehow failed, since it’s lost so much power so quickly.
Does that seem reasonable, or could something else be the problem?
…does it also come out of the nozzle perpendicularly?
I will troubleshoot very intensively before I will give up a 10 hour old tube. Of course, if the tube has for example run only 5 minutes without cooling…, but you will have noticed it…, as I said, organized troubleshooting to rule out all possible and impossible errors.
I’m not saying you fried your tube. What I’m saying and have experienced is that people during setup/testing their machines have not been aware that their tube was completely full of water, without large air bubbles. The machine’s water flow alarm will not register this. This typically happens when the water outlets are not pointing vertically/straight up, which is often seen on new machines.
If you are sure that this has not been the case with your machine, you can check it off your list.
If your tube looks “normal”, I would, as @jkwilborn recommends, do a test of the laser beam (TEM) on M1 and check. If it is also ok, then it is your mirrors, lens or alignment. Test Test Test…
