45W Tube Losing Cutting Power; Need New Tube?

[jgecik]

Hello,

I went to cut some 3mm MDF and noticed that no matter what I did with the laser settings in LaserCAD, I couldn't get the laser to cut through, despite not having any issue doing so a few days ago.

I'm running just shy of 18mAs, same as always.

The tube is just over 6 months old and I've been running it with chilled water at 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

Could this be a problem with my electronics or is it just time for a new tube?

Thanks.

[Tech_Marco]

What kind of machine you have?
It could be the optics getting dirty
BTW, what tube it is? If it is 850mm or 720mm tube, you may want to keep it not over 16mA


Marco

[jgecik]

I'm running the DSP kit in the K40 box (all of the internal hardware is LightObject).

I've got the 1000mm 45w tube.

I'll double check with a different lens, but all of my optics were cleaned before the job where I found I had trouble cutting.

Thanks, Marco.

[Tech_Marco]

Did you have good focus point?
To get the focus point, set your laser to low power like 8 or 9% then fire it up on a piece of paper. By moving the paper up or down, you will see the change of the burn marking. The smaller one is the focus point or sorted of. But it should be considered good enough for 3mm cutting.

For my machine, I could cut through 13mm with speed at 1mm/so which I think was the best I ever tried on K40.

Marco