thoughts and opinions please
having some trouble cutting with this machine (RECI W6 Tube).so did the obvious…checked the lens and mirrors - cleaned and put back (changed one mirror)…still not cutting well
So thought id check alignment first things first check the beam into the focus lens…well this is what i am getting…using thermal paper
That is around 20mm in diameter…so step back wards…using a peice of MDF between the tube output and the first mirror (MDF perpendicular to the tube) i get this
again exceedingly large from what i would expect
so i took the cone (dust cone) off the end of the tube and at first i thought the black was dirt but nope it looks like it should be there but can you see the speckled look of this - it doesnt look good…
In the last photo, the lens doesn’t look clean… can you remove it and clean it?
Anytime you align the machine, it only takes a couple seconds to put a target on m1 and see what the output of the tube looks like… it may be the issue.
You want to check it for a TEM00 mode or resonance state…
When you test this, use the least amount of power. A burnt through hole is not useful.
The last photo is the output of the tube … cannot remove that mirror can only clean the outside which is what I did
The second photo is directly from the tube
Some lasers use a removable cover over the real output window, but usually not
You should try to clean it with alcohol and a q-tip. If it’s just dirt/smoke/soot it will clean off, but the dirt may have heated up and etched the window. That’s irreparable, but it won’t be any worse if you clean the soot out of the etch.
A dirty output window will not cause the laser to change from the TEM00 gaussian fundamental though, it just reduces the usable output.
The “donut” indicates the mode has hopped to TEM01. Mode changes are accompanied by a major drop in cutting power and basically unusable.
Very common failure and I’ve never heard of a way to fix it, you just have to replace the tube.
Sometimes we see TEM10 too, that’s a donut with a dot in the middle.
