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View Full Version : Is there any hope or trick or advise?? Dead leaked Gas from Laser Tubes??



Vicki Rivrud
10-25-2012, 3:14 PM
Hi All,

I need some help or ideas. I thought I had myself covered having 2 150 watt standard glass tubes on the shelf.

The tube I have been using for a couple of years was going strong until sudden death! So I took a new tube off the shelf ( almost 1 -1/2 years old)

and it glows but the beam doesn't exit the tube, tested by holding a piece of paper at the exit. Nothing.

Here a few pics
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Does anyone know what the 3 screws are for? they do seem to be glued in place.

One of the tubes seems to just go around in circles around the inner area.

Is it just that the gas is too weak to full emit the beam??

Of course I have work backed up, customers screaming, lost a customer and my new RECI which was suppose to be delivered on Tuesday is MIA.

Any ideas????

Does anyone know the shelf life of the new W series RECI's?

Thanks
Vicki

Dan Hintz
10-25-2012, 6:35 PM
It's likely one of the internal optics has shifted position... consider it a throwaway.

Greg Facer
10-25-2012, 8:21 PM
Hey Vicki,

I feel your pain. my last post on (I think) your forum stated that my W6 was working great.....not so much, tube had a manufacturing defect, gone after 30 minutes of work! (BTW, I can't post there anymore....not sure why, I think I had to re register too. Anyways....)

What I did is buy a coletech 80w tube from ebay and hope to use that while the continuing issues with my main tube get resolved. That is assuming Coletech packs better or pays DHL better than RECI did. $700 shipped. There might be clearance costs with DHL, but since I've paid for clearance on two 150w tubes they busted in transit, I think I'll have enough to yell at them with to waive that.

An 80w might be slower, but they'll do most of the work I want it to and are readily available, and a lot better than no laser. You could probably even overnight one from Rabbit Laser or other reseller types without too much extra cost. I'm lucky in a way that I have another machine at another location I can use if I have a job that *really* needs the laser, but it's not the same as having in house by a long shot. Heck, I'm so frustrated I was even looking at getting a used 100watt RF laser and sticking it in for ($9000) but I can't get past economics of the high costs of refills compared to just buying a new tube, and down time either way.

So, I think my plan going forward is to just have a fresh 80w around and maybe one full power spare between the two machines. If I have even one tube that works reliably then I can stop being so frustrated at the process! The other trick, as you have pointed out, is to test the tubes upon arrival and test every 6 months or so to make sure they still work!

Look forward to here how the W6 fared, I will hope for the best!
Greg

Vicki Rivrud
10-25-2012, 10:11 PM
Hi Greg,
The tube is the most frustrating part of this business. They always seem to come in broken or non-functioning. Yeh - I thought I had covered my b*tt by have the 2 new spares that I had come ocean freight when I got my new chillers. But something must have shifted as Dan suggests or the membranes are so thin that the gasses leak out even when the tube isn't firing. So its a dam*ned if you do and dam*ned if you don't.

I've been asking around locally or close to me about buying a tube here but I've had no luck. I did have a member here offer to help with a project as well as a member at the other forum, who I am shipping some andzed tags to for a little Christian School in need for Spirit Week and Halloween Dance. I hate to let customers down.

And now I have to sweat out the safe arrival of the new RECI tube . . DHL are gorrillas and insurance claims take so long. I was fortunate to find an insurance online that I could purchase for new goods so if it does come destroyed I will have a quicker remedy to recover my loss. Last go around, when the China factory handled the insurance it took me 2 years before I received anything. The insurance money was released to the factory and I had to take supplies in lieu of money because of the Chinese laws restricting cash to US. So its a vicious cycle. Shirley at Coletech never got back to me and I have heard some nightmare tales about the ebay experience so I'm between a rock and a hard place.

DHL tells me that the crate hasn't left Hong Kong yet so here I sit . . .. oh well . . . PM the info about your problem at the other forum . . .I only see you as a guest not a member so I'll have to solve that problem.

I'll let you know have the tube thing works out.

I was hoping that a miracle might happen here . . . thought maybe some of the more experienced might have found a solution . . . seems like there should be one, wishful thinking I guess , , ,

Vicki

Greg Facer
10-25-2012, 11:13 PM
Hi Vicki,

Two things I have learned. #1, although the glass of the tube *might* be repairable, and refillable, the mix of the gas inside isn't just CO2, it's complex and designed for regenerating the CO2 again after the laser starts using it up. Hence, that is why the larger lasers use flow through CO2.....part of me wonders if that is possible to to with one of these.

#2 was that the "seal" on the RECI tubes, maybe others, seemed to be a copper ring clamped between the steel pieces with the screws. It did NOT seem to be what I would chose for an airtight seal, but I guess it worked. I did read one other post somewhere about a laser that looked ok in the tube but nothing came out the end, like yours. That has got to be the most frustrating thing!

As for the shifted optics....you might as well break one of them that looks less promising or the one that failed and see if you can understand them better from the inside. Maybe the screws do do something if you can unloosen the glue. I don't recall the RECI having screws like that at all.

Greg

Vicki Rivrud
10-26-2012, 8:22 AM
Hi Greg,
My post is only about standard glass tubes that excite but do not emit.

My RECI is lost somewhere in Hong Kong by DHL . . .I've never had a RECI but have read so many good things about them both here and at the RECI site. 10,000 hours instead of 3,000 and the beefed up warrantee.

But then, there is still the stress and heartache of shipping and receiving it undamaged.

Thanks for the info,
Vicki