Ghost Marks

[Riki Potter]

When engraving laminate plates I'm getting ghost lines on the left and right of the engraving. Their very faint and look like they match up with where the laser stops at the end of each line.
This is a problem I've had alot, although I'm not totally sure how often it happens as it can be very hard to notice most of the time.
I can try to get a photo if needed but it'll be hard to see it.

[David Fairfield]

Dirty or cracked lens?

[Riki Potter]

The lens was slightly dirty, cleaning it if anything made it a little bit better. I though the laser wasn't even supposed to be firing at all at that point?

[Chuck Stone]

tickle voltage?

[Mike Mackenzie]

I am pretty sure that the mercury used a Synrad laser tube and that problem is definitely a tickle adjustment problem. Contact GCC or Synrad and find out how to adjust it. I think there might already be a thread on this topic try searching the forum for "Tickle adjustment"

Here is the post http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?156739-Laser-Leak

[Mick Helliwell]

I had the same thing whilst doing plastic laminate name badges and in particular on brushed gold.(with the brush going horizontally). A vertical line appeared at both ends of the text, for the full height of the text and in line with end of the laser head sweep. My machine is a Spirit 30W and still under warranty so I called the tech out. He diagnosed the problem as the out put voltage when the laser fires. 15 Volts and 17 Volts spring to mind. For some reason the output voltage had changed and after re adjustment the problem was cured.

[Duncan Crawford]

When engraving laminate plates I'm getting ghost lines on the left and right of the engraving. Their very faint and look like they match up with where the laser stops at the end of each line.This is a problem I've had alot, although I'm not totally sure how often it happens as it can be very hard to notice most of the time.I can try to get a photo if needed but it'll be hard to see it.When I've had this issue it's almost always been a mismatched color space. I set my workspace defaults to be RGB, but photos, clipart and similar (including some macros like BoxIt) may be all or partially CMYK after processing (1-Touch, for example, seems to turn RGB photo input into CMYK output). So, your nice "white" background may be CMYK white, not RGB white... and you'll get lines in the background around an image. So, check that all parts of your image are in the same color space.

duncan

[Riki Potter]

Thanks for all the advice guys, turns out it was a tickle voltage issue. All I had to do was access the main board then the jumper for it is right in the middle of the board, move left for less tickle voltage and right for more, simple. Unfortunately it appears a couple of the screws on the panel covering the mainboard are pretty well seized, luckily I have skinny arms and could reach the jumper through the half open panel hehe.

[Rowan Hay]

Hi Riki,
I too live in wellington ( lower Hutt ) with a 40w Laserpro explorer
also Emma Austin another laser owner here lives in Wellington ( petone )


Rowan Hay

[Riki Potter]

Hiya Rowan, I happen to be in Petone aswell at Peter Campbell Engravers. Do you work for yourself or a bigger company? It's good to know there's locals on here.