Laser stopped firing!

[Snijmeesters]

Hi guys,

Last saturday my 100W Lasersaur stopped working. I checked the tube and found a tiny diffuse spot (tube 1.jpg) on the inner tube and there was a very tiny amount of water inside as well. I concluded the tube was broken and decided to replace it. We went to a local supplier of "Lasea" tubes and asked them to test it in combination with our (Reci) power supply which we brought along. Everything worked fine and we got a steady 108 Watt laser beam at 28mA power.

This morning we put the new Lasea tube in the Lasersaur and reconnected all the wires/hoses. We started with the mirror calibration process to see if everything worked again, but at 10 and 20% power we couldn't get a burn mark in the tape on the 1st mirror mount. We decided to try it at 100% and noticed a small diffuse spot, just like with the first tube, started to appear!! (see tube 2.jpg). The tube is now producing blue flames between the inner and outer tube, coming out of the tiny crack.

Does anybody have any idea what could cause this kind of burn mark? Water chiller and Coolant seems to be OK.

Hope you can help!!

Thanks,

[Tech_Marco]

Sorry to tell you that your tube is 'gone'. It happened to one of Reci tube we sold and need replacement.


Marco

[Snijmeesters]

We know it's 'gone' but now we're afraid that simply replacing the tube will give us the same problem again and again. Any idea how this happened to your own tube? bad power supply?

[Tech_Marco]

It was a defective tube. Reci replaced ut for us

What power supply were you using and what was water temperature?

Marco

[Snijmeesters]

It's a reci psu. Water temperature was 18-20 degrees Celsius.

[Tech_Marco]

What is model of tube?. It is not a Reci tube but a ERF tubr instead. Is it F2 or F4? What us the total length and the diameter of the tube? How old is that?


Marco

[Snijmeesters]

Our first tube was a 100W long life Reci from Coletech. After <1000 hours it died (see photo tube1.jpg at the beginning of this topic) so we bought a new one from a local supplier. This was a "Lasea F4" also 100W and I believe the diameter is 80mm. Sadly it died again after a few seconds of use (see photo tube2.jpg). We think the PSU might cause this an needs to be replaced as well.

[Tech_Marco]

Unless you over driven it by over current, most tube won't die because of PSU. What current did you used to drive the tubes? If within 6 months, you should get a replacement from the seller

Marco