My New laser has arrived!!
1st Job cut 2000 shapes in 4mm ply for a printing company.
It’s 2500 x 1300 bed size, 150w Co2
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Beautiful !
Good Gracious…!
How long did that take?
Quite a machine… congrats…
Next to mine this just not is an aircraft carrier because is not in the water!!! 
Its huge! Nice machine!
What a beautiful piece of machinery! Is that blood splatters on the floor? Be sure to get you a good tarp for the next time you fire up the chainsaw, you don’t want to get your new laser messy. Your laser looks like it is so well built, that it could double as a dissection table also. Have fun!
How long did that take…I assume you mean to 2000 pieces.
There were 500 ish on each 2400x1200 board, and I used 4 boards, each board took 45 mins to cut 
4mm ply is 80% power 55mm/s
It’s not blood lol, it’s just where the gray paint has worn off the floor.
4mm ply is 80% power 55mm/s
I know nothing of your machine but…it seems even if it took a little longer to do the cuts you would be adding to the life of your tube IF you lowered your speed a tad which would lower the mA power necessary to do the job.
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IMHO… I disagree… I have yet been able to easily compute a speed/power change to get the same results… It’s even worse with the fiber and lens selection.
When machining any material the speeds and feeds are set to use the equipment to it’s best operation. Although we relate speeds and feeds a little differently from machines such as milling or drilling machines.
Speeds and feeds on these usually relate to spindle speed (tool power) and material feed… in simplistic terms.
We change it around a little, we relate being speed is actually power from the tool. Feed is how fast the material moves relative to the tool. Laser people swap this around to be power/speed instead of speed/feed.
They mean the same thing and with a known material/tool we can compute fairly close what the proper settings are…
Lasers are a bit different, as most of us use natural material, which by nature, isn’t the same throughout the entire piece. A milling or drilling tool has consistent number of teeth… the laser does not, so the tool itself is also inconsistent. Inconsistent tool/material, makes computations difficult to if not impossible.
In the end we are machining something, doesn’t matter if it’s additive (3d printed), subtractive, such as milling, drilling or lasing, it’s still a machining operation.
If the machine is setup for 100% power being what the manufacturer states as the continuous operation power, 80% is very reasonable.
My experience with laser cutting is the faster you can feed the material at the highest comfortable laser power, will give you the best cut results.
The only advantage to a large powerful laser is the ability to engrave deeper into the material… basically to increase material thickness cutting ability.
Tubes are consumables, not low cost, but they still wear out… If you are running within the operational area of the tube, it should last as long.
If I’m to believe most users, there seems little difference between heavy use and sitting on a shelf… they seem to expire in relatively the same amount of time…
If you purchase a good tube, it will usually state an expected lifetime of 5k to 10k hours. You can find many that mention 2k hours, and I pass on those. The ss pumped fiber has 100k hours MTBF. I don’t run it at 100% either… although many do.
There is a certain speed/feed for the best operation of any machine.
I don’t buy a drill bit and run my drill at 1/2 speed to theoretically extend the drills life… use it within it’s design criteria, but in the end it does it’s job and is expendable.
Just another view of the continuous debate on tube life… My old ones are on a shelf, with some of my old transmitter tubes… tubes a tube… 
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The tube is most efficient between 28ma and 30ma, on a daily use is it recommended to use 28ma (tube data)
80% power of the tube gives me 28ma on the meter, so I then set the speed to run the job as fast as it can at that power.
The tube can be set upto 100%, but according to the efficiency rating I don’t think this would result in a tube that lasted very long as it would give 36ma. So in essence I have already done your suggestion of reducing the speed to reduce the ma, I have just gone to the recommended ma of the tube manifacturer.
I was supportive that you are doing a good job with the selection of speed/power…
Most factory data I’ve seen on these don’t really give you a current/output relationship across the operating range … that’s something you usually have to plot on your own…
@ednisley has done this along with others… maybe he’ll pop in and advise us of his power/current curve along with his conclusions…
I had always, before owning one, thought that the tube laser power conversion was pretty poor in relation of input power to output power… I’ve was surprised when I computed it myself to find it very efficient.
I don’t worry about some things I can’t change, have just learned to understand the issue and make the best use of what I have.
Have fun, sounds like you are doing everything right…
Take care
Exactly what i done with my 60W
As Jack has said many times,"every laser unit has it’s own quirks
What about fumes? Is there a suction fan?
Hi,
Yes there are fans or I would die from smoke inhalation lol
It was a concern of mine too before I bought the machine being open top.
There are 3 extractor fans. 2 sucking downwards pulling 90% of the fumes out and 1 in the wall (that I added as an extra as some fumes were going into the room) beside the machine that draws air from the other side of the room across the machine away from the top.
Works suprisingly well, even after cutting 300 Tabs for a printing company that took nearly all of an 8x4 foot sheet, there was no smoke in the room.
Regards, Neil
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Really enjoying my large format laser too. 150w, likely the same size. Engraving and cutting a 4x8 acrylic sheet took about 7 hours.
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It must be paying for itself 