Matt Davis
10-16-2012, 10:02 PM
Hi all,
I have a 45 watt Epilog Mini 24 that's been serving me well for several years. I engrave a lot of acrylic, and over the last year or so I've been noticing the quality has been slowly declining...specifically with vertical lines. Anything that's between one and half a point can be especially problematic, requiring me to slow the machine down to a crawl in order to get them to show properly. Generally, that hasn't been such a big deal, but now I've come to realize I'm running jobs at 40 and 50 percent that I used to run at 100% speed. My guess is that my tube has become sluggish in its old age and isn't firing quickly enough as it receives its trigger pulse, therefore missing its hit, so to speak. That's all fine and dandy, and I've already called Epilog to price a replacement. But here's the thing that's bothering me. Most people seem to mention loss of power when their tube starts to fail, but mine still continues to vector cut beautifully. I can cut 3/8" acrylic all day long at 100% power and 4% speed with no issues. There are no dropouts in cut lines, and no gradual loss of power over time.
So I guess my question is this: Has anyone else experienced this mode of failure, and did a new tube solve the issue? Or could there be another culprit at work here that I'm not aware of? I'd really hate to swap out a good old tube that if anything cuts at higher than rated power for a new one that may not. All the optics and the encoder strip have been checked and cleaned regularly, and alignment seems to be spot on, so I've ruled those out as possibilities.
Thanks for your response!
I have a 45 watt Epilog Mini 24 that's been serving me well for several years. I engrave a lot of acrylic, and over the last year or so I've been noticing the quality has been slowly declining...specifically with vertical lines. Anything that's between one and half a point can be especially problematic, requiring me to slow the machine down to a crawl in order to get them to show properly. Generally, that hasn't been such a big deal, but now I've come to realize I'm running jobs at 40 and 50 percent that I used to run at 100% speed. My guess is that my tube has become sluggish in its old age and isn't firing quickly enough as it receives its trigger pulse, therefore missing its hit, so to speak. That's all fine and dandy, and I've already called Epilog to price a replacement. But here's the thing that's bothering me. Most people seem to mention loss of power when their tube starts to fail, but mine still continues to vector cut beautifully. I can cut 3/8" acrylic all day long at 100% power and 4% speed with no issues. There are no dropouts in cut lines, and no gradual loss of power over time.
So I guess my question is this: Has anyone else experienced this mode of failure, and did a new tube solve the issue? Or could there be another culprit at work here that I'm not aware of? I'd really hate to swap out a good old tube that if anything cuts at higher than rated power for a new one that may not. All the optics and the encoder strip have been checked and cleaned regularly, and alignment seems to be spot on, so I've ruled those out as possibilities.
Thanks for your response!