ruvane bernstein
09-13-2010, 6:58 AM
I've been running an Epilog Legend 24 30W for 7 years doing lots of papercut invitations, glasses and olive wood engraving.
The other day, in the middle of a cutting job, the machine stopped cutting and knowing the probable cause (it is 7 years after all!) my heart pounded. I checked the usual suspects but it didn't look good.
I emailed Epilog and got reply saying that "yes, it's probably your tube". While waiting for the reply from Epilog, I scoured the net and got a bit of info on the Coherent lasers.
With not much to lose, I marked the position of the laser and removed it. Found a cover that probably hid the PCB and removed it to take a look. I have a background in electronics so I figured if I needed a refurbished tube I couldn't do the dead one much harm if I was careful.
Fuses were fine and then I noticed that there a couple of high current transformers and the connection of one of them looked slightly burned. Checked some connections and it had obviously been arcing and was now burned away. Carefully desoldered the connections around it, cleaned them off and resoldered the offender.
With much prayer I connected it up (to use the term lightly) and did a one second burn with a piece of tissue in front of the exit. Voila! Bolted it all back to together and it's working better than it has for a few years, which I assume was because the contact was only making the circuit by arcing.
After the euphoria died away I realized that I better make plans for the eventual failure and am looking for recommendations for where to get an exchange unit. Any suggestions (ignoring location)?
Thanks.
The other day, in the middle of a cutting job, the machine stopped cutting and knowing the probable cause (it is 7 years after all!) my heart pounded. I checked the usual suspects but it didn't look good.
I emailed Epilog and got reply saying that "yes, it's probably your tube". While waiting for the reply from Epilog, I scoured the net and got a bit of info on the Coherent lasers.
With not much to lose, I marked the position of the laser and removed it. Found a cover that probably hid the PCB and removed it to take a look. I have a background in electronics so I figured if I needed a refurbished tube I couldn't do the dead one much harm if I was careful.
Fuses were fine and then I noticed that there a couple of high current transformers and the connection of one of them looked slightly burned. Checked some connections and it had obviously been arcing and was now burned away. Carefully desoldered the connections around it, cleaned them off and resoldered the offender.
With much prayer I connected it up (to use the term lightly) and did a one second burn with a piece of tissue in front of the exit. Voila! Bolted it all back to together and it's working better than it has for a few years, which I assume was because the contact was only making the circuit by arcing.
After the euphoria died away I realized that I better make plans for the eventual failure and am looking for recommendations for where to get an exchange unit. Any suggestions (ignoring location)?
Thanks.