I’ve had my Omtech 60 watt machine (first laser) for about 6 months, I’m finding that certain areas of my work surface either do not cut all of the way through or, they are really scorched.I’ve checked that the machine is level by measuring from the axis rails and I’m good. The lens and mirrors are clean. The tube was recently replaced because of TEM00 issues, so I only have about 200 hours on it.
So, while on YouTube, I saw some videos on air assist by Bearded Builds and others. I just installed 2 solenoid valves with a control valve on one of them for LP air, all fed from a remote compressor. I’ve set my regulator to 25psi (HP) and about half that on the LP. It works great no more scorching. But I’m having trouble cutting through 3mm Baltic birch. I tried turning down to 20 psi, and cutting got a little better but the scorching started returning. I’ve been running at 30% power and speed of 10mm/sec.
If it is fairly ok plywood, I cut with 35-45% power and between 20 and 30 mm/s in speed with my 60watt OMT laser.
I always use air support, about 120l/min.
How do your test shots look at the mirrors and by test shots through the nozzle?. If the tube is ok it is usually alignment that is not 100% ok.
So closes to the Co2 tube if i got you right
Could really be alignment
Is a whole can of worms on which i would be not the best person to advise but sounds like mirror alignment to me
Thanks for the response. I checked my mirrors again. See the attached photo of M3 both spots near M! and the front right corner. I don’t like it! You will see a defined dot which was a pulse near M!. The shaded area a little up and right is the front right corner. I cannot get a good, clean mark in that position, just a blob. I tried at 10% power and got nothing. I moved to 12% and got this. This has been pretty much the case on pulses at the same position since Omtech replaced my tube over TEM00 issues.
I suppose it’s on Miror 1
As a starting point, it’s not bad, but when your laser starts at 12% then you need to reduce the pulse time ms, until you don’t burn in through. (It’s not so important at M2 and M3 But M1 should show you if your tube is OK.
In addition to that, I will work with fine tuning to hit the center perfectly. I know many who think it’s not so important to M1, I have a different meaning to it.
I didn’t really follow what you were saying here… I wonder about the marked target in this post. Is that 1 test shot or is it a far near… I assume it’s from m1, but you lost me.
An out of resonance tube or TEM modal issue can cause this… did you check that?
Both of these are a couple years old… remove the .txt extension
It still needs to be tweaked to hit center or as close as you can on Mirror 1. Otherwise, by the time it hits Mirror 3, it won’t be able to vertically align correctly… Do you have a picture of Mirror 3 alignment tests? The blur on mirror 1 is normal but you should see a dot and the blur overlap each other. It’s hard to tell from the pic if that’s the case.
Check the tube for air assist and make sure it’s not clogged. Have you checked your lens?
