the size or type of spot when aligning the laser?

[Vicki Rivrud]

Hurray! Our new RECI W6 arrived . . .it left Hong Kong on Saturday, hit New York on Sunday and left for Ohio just as the airport was closing for Sandy. It went to Miami and then Tampa and then via truck to our shop In Palm Harbor. DHL has never delivered an unbroken tube. BUT this time the packing was excellant. Double crate, blue dense foam and soft cloud like white foam. AND it was unbroken! The directions were in Chinese but I was able to find the English download at the RECI site.

This may sound like a peculiar question however I've often wondered if the type or size of the spot makes any differance when you are aligning the laser.

Here is a photo of the test paper which was placed over the first mirror at the immediate beam exit from the tube. I'm wondering if the 2 mm up lift at the exit has anything to do with this? The old bulb was sitting perfectly level but RECI sez to install a little upward.
244486


My setting for the pulse was for 350 mms at 25% power.


I just received my RECI W6 tube and noticed this spot is more oval than a filled in spot as with my old standard tube.

Of course when I tested the spot after aligning all the mirrors and the spot through the focal tube was a small spot and directly coming through the middle of the focal tube as it should be.

Tommorrow we will be starting up again with a back log of projects and orders, so I haven't run the laser for very long today.

Does anyone know the shelf life of these tubes? Does the co2/gasses leak out even when not firing like the old glass standard tubes??

I welcome all feedback or suggestions.


Of course we had to do a day's worth of retro fitting and changes to get the tube to fit properly in the cradles and in the frame as this tube to our amazement is so much smaller yet fatter than the 3 year old standard tube that just went out but that's a whole other post . . . . . .

Thank you for any help,
Vicki

[Greg Facer]

Hi Vicki,

Glad your tube arrived unbroken!

The photo looks weird to me, if it truly is a ring and not filled in. Did you check your exit lens? You can't clean it, but can report it and take a photo if it's defective.

Oval shape alone should be OK and I think I was a little that way on both my V8 and W6, but a ring I would be worried about. The photo isn't so good though, hard to tell if the middle of the ring is burnt through and the oval is charred edges or if the charred part is actually a ring?

Having said that.....if you need work done, it might work enough for the backlogged stuff. The lens should still focus that OK, as your post indicates. I guess if the power / speed tests OK then you should be good.

Greg

[Vicki Rivrud]

It's amazing that it arrive unbroken!

Yes it's just an oval ring, nothing in the middle. Yet when I got through aligning all the mirrors and through the focal tube it is a small spot. I am thinking once I get cutting and engraving I;ll know.

RECI sez that the testing acrylic or paper should be 300 mm from the exit - I'll have to measure to be sure.

So did you get a W6 as well??

If so can you send me a photo of your alignment test at the 1st mirror at the tube exit.

I also set the laser to run at 80% power no matter what the file setting is. AND I'll watch the Ma measurement so not to go over the recommend settings. I rarely ever went over 20 Ma with the old tube anyway.

Thanks
Vicki

[Kees Soeters]

I have seen similar pictures from defective lasertubes.. they come in zero's (like this one), even in Eight-shapes..
Not sure but i suspect one of the mirrors/windows inside the tube is loose..
Contact Resi... probably need a replacement..
Kees

[Mark Sipes]

So what does that mean , another week or two without a laser... Wow! and a new laser at that. My condolences

[Greg Facer]

Try and run it for the jobs you have now, it sounds like something is coming out, but try to document it now too. Since RECI don't want the tubes back, they just ask for them to be broken, no real harm in sending them (or through your seller perhaps) the photos and asking their opinion AND keep using it at the same time.

Unlike the RF lasers, you can't make a broken or defective glass tube more broken.

And yes, Vicki, the plan is that I will be getting the W6 again. I think I am just going to wait on the 80w power supply to see how that runs to decide if I get an extra w6 or not. I'm beginning to thing 80w or 100w is the sweet spot on these machines, and how they are made, and forget about the potential speedup that 150w might bring.

Greg

[Vicki Rivrud]

Thanks a bunch, I've emailed everything to RECI and am waiting to hear back from them.

I'll keep ya posted.

Vicki

[Dan Hintz]

Not sure but i suspect one of the mirrors/windows inside the tube is loose..

Correct...

[matthew knott]

Also when you take a paper burn dont hold the paper really close to the output lens, smoke can degrade the lens and im guessing you cant clean them !

[walter hofmann]

Hi vicky
this thing is broken forgett it request a new one. I had this a few times. reci says the spot size on 100 - 150W tubes are around 8mm.
did you take a look at recis site about size and power I allways be concerned if the sizes ar much different then the original because 3 years is not the time where they usually change sizes or design. I had a customer who has ordered a 50W and received a 80W with totaly different mesaurments at first the manufacturer claimed that this is a 50W till the customer send the picture then they found out somebody in the ware house has mixed up orders.
greetings
walt

[john banks]

Just another reference point... both V4 RECI 100W tubes that we got with the machine and that both work well have had a filled circle with tape over the "inlet" to the first mirror.

[Vicki Rivrud]

UPDATE . . .the tube is tops! The test spot is off because our "test" settings were set too low. Once I fixed that (Leetro PAD MPC6515) it is nice spot coming directly out of the tube at mirror one.

I've done several Xoom Tablet/Motoboards & anodized Chewbarka tags


I am however having to adjust my settings from previous projects - it's like starting all over again.

Take care all

[walter hofmann]

Hi vicky
be carefull it does not matter how high the power settings are the spot on mirror one should allways be a round dot not a open circle with the center not filled.
if you have to increase the power with a new tube allready then this tube has problems and I would not except it for the money. I have seen such tubes who was similar and they did not even last 500hours especially with cutting.
just my experience
greetings
walt

[Dan Hintz]

UPDATE . . .the tube is tops! The test spot is off because our "test" settings were set too low. Once I fixed that (Leetro PAD MPC6515) it is nice spot coming directly out of the tube at mirror one.


be carefull it does not matter how high the power settings are the spot on mirror one should allways be a round dot not a open circle with the center not filled. if you have to increase the power with a new tube allready then this tube has problems and I would not except it for the money.

Correct... if there's enough power to burn the paper, there's enough power to be running with. The ring at low power screams optics issue, and you will not get good performance out of the tube.

You've been warned...