I am a fresh and proud ownver of a brand new red/black 60w chinese laser bought on Vevor. I have received it this week and set it up yesterday.
I started by checking mirrors alignement and got bad surprise to see that the beam directly at the exit of the tube is very strange, not a dot as i use to have on my other lasers (i have 3 K40) but some kind of big blurry dot with a circle around, here is the picture :
Nevermind, i have aligned all mirrors correctly and the beam outside the nozzle is well focused in one perfect dot BUT laser is clearly lacking of power. I cannot cut plywood 3mm, i have to insist with 3 or 4 passes (15mm/s 60% power) and even engraving is very weak (150mm/s 60%) and very far away from any of my K40 (i used to engrave at 300mm/s 15%).
I have already contacted the support to get some assistance. In my humble opinion, tube is dead or at least very defective.
Just a quick thought.
Are you sure the laser is correctly focussed on the plywood?
Does the tube have a label on it stating power rating?
If you think the tube is defective, have you checked it with a power meter?
If the test on the blue background is from the nozzle exit, then your beam hits the inside of the nozzle. If that is the case then maybe you are losing a lot of energy. What does your ammeter say that e.g. 20%?
If your beam mode is bad out of the tube just stop. Why would you think it’s going to do anything but suck beyond that. Just stop.
Check to make sure nothing is goobered up inside the end of the tube. You can use an inspection mirror to look inside since you cant see straight in or just remove mirror 1 assembly so you can see. Take a Q tip soaked in alcohol and gently wipe the output lens on the tube…I said gently…not scrub dub dub a dub dub.
If it still has a bad mode….STOP. Contact the seller…send them a pic of the beam mode. Have them send a new tube. Actually I would buy a new tube right now anyway as I like a spare on hand and keep the one the vendor sends as the spare but that’s me, replacing a tube is no big deal just takes time to align optics.
If something sucks at the beginning it only sucks by an order magnitude at the output end……this is the immutable laws of suck.
Your tube diameter should be 50mm so take note as there are 50mm and 55mm diameter tubes available. Get a 55mm and it won’t fit the brackets…ask how I found out…so just be aware
Sorry for the confusion.
With how much power did you take that test out of the tube?
A certain ignition voltage is required to give a correct spot.
I’m not going to say what you need or not, but without an ammeter you are working blindly with your machine. Isn’t there an ammeter on the power supply itself? There are some machines today that come with it.
… I should try it
In the picture you see a shot from my tube, just after exit, before mirror 1.
The first mark, which is very similar to yours, is made with 99ms and 10%, the second is made with 99ms and 12%.
So the starting current must be slightly up, to be able to give a correct picture. 10.5% can also work on my machine.
(10% corresponds to about 2-3mA, 12% corresponds to about 3.5mA on my machine)
There is hope ahead regarding your machine I think.
A 60w tube should be able the cut 3mm plywood with no problem in one pass. Normally it’s difficult to identify where the problem is but deformed beam patterns is a sign of issues with the tube. I always buy well packed tubes and I wonder how tubes are shipped with a machine.
I agree with others that there is nothing you can do other than insuring your power levels are correct. If so then definitely get on the manufacture before the warranty expires.
