Hey everyone. I have an issue. My laser was working fine and then I listened to someone on another forum say to turn the power down on the unit. I did that and it never went back up. Not unplugging the controller, or anything helped. Power stayed barely on and weak. What you see in video is how it was but weaker. I read that when power is back on higher it should go away.
So next step I decided I needed to clean water in tube anyway and took it all apart. Now its still doing this and not sure where to troubleshoot it now. the connections seem ok from wires wrapped around terminal and plugged into power supply. Heres a video when test
I just went through the same thing, i was told to first try out clean distilled water ( not tap water) in as the old water could be contaminated causing the arcing… unfortunately about 2 days later it started arcing at the power in side of the tube and have now ordered a replacement tube… maybe try change the water first as that is the cheapest and easiest option… and hopefully for you the solution…
The pink inside the tube is the plasma that gets excited when you fire the laser. The laser itself is invisible to the human eye. The plasma will jump around like that, and is normal. When the CO2 charge in your tube is good, you’ll get a nice bright pink color in the plasma. When your tube is losing CO2 charge, it will get a lot whiter in color.
thanks. I need to a rebuild when i get a chance. a higher power supply on this tube would damage it? or a low power supply on a higher tube? Im just thinking with the extra parts I have. I cleaned everything and its a little stronger now on test but weak when cutting using design
You should be able to drop the lps current, also raise it. My lps is higher power (by 10 watts) than my tube can handle, so I lowered it. Many do… Mine would draw 14mA @ 50% power and my tube max is rated at 21mA.
I was going to do some other modifications I hadn’t got around to doing for a rebuild. Then thought maybe i could try it and buy more time not needing to do it. I was wrong.Now I need to build the new one fast but ordering everything in is taking longer then expected.
I wouldn’t think you’d have a problem with a higher power power supply, as long as you watch the milliamps that you’re pushing to the tube, as you don’t want to overdrive the tube and damage it. Lower power power supply would be fine as well, as it won’t push enough power to push the tube over the max current it can safely take.
IMHO, I disagree that watching the mA is safe if you have a lps that can overdrive your tube. Although it may be the best ‘general’ option.
When I set up my lps, I checked power at 50%, since I know it will run well at 50%. The current there was around 14mA. This means the supply can produce 28mA.
The reality is that when I tested it at 50%, it was running 100% power, 50% of the time. We should all know this…
It was drawing 28mA anytime it lased.
The rms value I read on the meter is ~1/2 of the total current based on a 50% pwm. My tube is rated at a max of 21mA. Set 50% pwm at 10.5mA.
Same way you read the voltage of a pwm signal with a multi meter. It’s a 0 or 5v signal that at 50% pwm you read as 2.5v. You KNOW the voltage is 0v or 5v, and not anything in between. Your tube does the same thing, full current of no current.
My tube is a ‘50 watt’ and the lps is 60 watt. I turned mine down so 50% pwm gave me a reading 1/2 of the max current I wished to have.
This also will align the percentage power that you set in Lightburn to be correct across the range.
You can’t control the lasers power, only the speed.
