Laser Not Working

[Ron Moorehead]

Just got my new LaserPro Explorer/ZX this week. I set the laser up and did a couple of test cuts and the laser worked fine. I was not able to continue until last night working with the laser. I went to do some test cuts to fine tune the power level for cutting and now the laser won't fire, the laser accepts the file and will run the file like it thinks the laser is working but the laser will not turn on. I called tech support at Signwarehouse house, but looks like they are closed on Saturdays. Any ideas what the problem is? Hate to start taking apart my new laser with out some idea what the problem maybe. Thanks…

[Dave Jones]

Usually there are magnets on the lid or doors that tell the laser it is safe to fire. Make sure those didn't fall off and the lid and doors are all tightly closed.

[Ron Moorehead]

Thanks for the reply, all of the door safty switches looks fine and the door lght goes off when all the doors are closed

[Gary Hair]

Does the "Laser" indicator light up? The one on the same panel as the door indicator.

The only time mine has done that was when it was in sleep mode and I put something in it and hit the start button - it takes a little bit to warm up, maybe 30-45 seconds. Try shutting it off, turning it on and try another test file. Make sure you have your pen settings correct, try one with 100% power and 50% speed.

Gary

[Rodne Gold]

Does the laser light come on?
You can enter Diagnostic mode by pressing the Autofocus button when switching the machine on , you will get a laser test menu which will allow you to test the laser without any program , set it to 15% power and put a piece of paper over the top hole the laser beam comes out of (or anywhere in the laser beam path) and see if firing it burns a hole. (you have to close the lid , even the diagnostic mode wont fire the laser if the lid is open )
If there is no hole or scorch mark on the paper, then the tube is faulty.
If the tube is faulty , there is nothing you can do right now.

[Larry Bratton]

Ron:
If your cutting from Corel..do you have a hairline outline on your part? No outline, no vector cut. I was cutting some parts yesterday and one of them didn't cut. Laser said job was finished. So, I selected the part and sent again..na-da. The I discovered I didn't have it outlined. Just a thought.

[Scott Shepherd]

I was cutting some parts yesterday and one of them didn't cut. Laser said job was finished. So, I selected the part and sent again..na-da. The I discovered I didn't have it outlined. Just a thought.

I like it when that happens much more than when you think it's finished vector cutting and it heads over someplace else and starts vectoring, only to find out you forgot to remove the outline from the object :D I hate it when that happens (and it happens more often than I care to admit ;) )

[Larry Bratton]

Scott:
Hahaha..thats the reverse of not putting it on there at all. I use the object manager a lot and I click on all the objects to be sure I know where they are in the graphic. Sometimes something's there you don't intend and as you know that usually means trouble.:eek: If I see that head start off in a direction that I didn't predict I hit the escape key on the pad. Better than ruining the material or some such.

[Ron Moorehead]

Thanks for all the help from the forum,

This is what iI have done so far.

Hi just got my laser this last Monday from you. I got it set up on Tuesday and did a couple of quick test cuts and then had to leave it alone until Friday. I was going to check power levels need to cut .25 acrylic. Using Corel Draw I made a small circle and set it to the laser. Just like I did with the early test cuts. The laser acted just like it got the file, the carriage moved and I could see it made the circle motion, but no cut. The laser light did come on the control panel indicating the laser was firing.

I found the maintenance manual on line and did some checks of the laser. First looks like all of the door switches are working fine, the light goes off on the control panel saying all the doors are closed. I went into the diagnostic mode for the laser and ran all of the tests and they all passed. I test fired the laser at 50 percent power and got no laser.

Ok I hated to open the panels, but I do have a lot of back ground in working on electrical and electronic equipment. Though maybe if I was lucky all it would be was a loose connection during shipping. Checked all the connectors and they looked and felt good. Plugged the laser in and tuned it on to check the main power supply feeding the laser, got 30 VDC going into the laser tube. Looking at the lights on the laser got one green light on, the amber light was off, and the red light was off. Ran a cut file very slowly to give me some time to check the lights on the laser tube. The lights did not change still had just the green light on, and both other lights off.

Not sure where I go from here.

Not sure if signwarehouse has tech support on the weekends, web site indicates it does but call then and left a voice message but never heard back. Will try on Monday.

Thanks again...

[Scott Shepherd]

Ron, how long are you letting it run for? If you're doing a small circle, it probably doesn't have enough time to warm up, perhaps?

Perhaps a better test would be a black square 8" x 8" and let it run until it's completed to make sure it's not a warming up problem?

Normally they take a little bit of running first thing in the mornings, and once they fire, they'll run all day fine.

I know that probably doesn't help, but it might be worth a try.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Ron, are you in an un-heated space??? Low temps will shut down the tube, but run everything else.

[Rodne Gold]

Scott , If your laser need an initial run to warm up - the tube or the electronics are on the way out , my lasers only exhibited that type of behaviour prior to failing.
Ron , Its almost 100% certain to be the tube. GCC had huge problems with The DEOS tube in the explorers .. I have 3 of them and they ate like 7 or 8 or 9 tubes in under 2 yrs !! I can't remember exactly how many , but we were always replacing em. Gcc blame DEOS QC for this -- dunno if yours use Deos or Synrad but if its the former , you might also have this problem.
GCC did everything possible on my explorers to try stop these failures , upgrading power supplys , new Motherboards etc , to no avail , leading me to think that it was indeed the tube makers problem.
I bought 3 spirits a yr ago to "compensate" for Explorers being down. My Explorers currently work and havent had tube failures recently - touch wood. My Spirits with Synrad tubes have not skipped a beat.
You can just do one more test and that is to check firing AT THE SOURCE , ie put the paper right at the laser and do the laser test , it could be some really bad alignment on the way up , but if you see the red beam on the table , its highly unlikely

[Scott Shepherd]

Rodne, my laser is brand new so I hope it's not on it's last leg! Takes a few seconds, probably 2-3 seconds on that first run in the morning, and once it fires, then you can turn it off and on as many times as you want all day and it'll fire on the first line. It was even explained to us at installation that we should expect that. I've seen several threads on here mentioning similar issues, where people waited for 15-30 seconds before it would fire in the mornings.

I thought it was normal, but you're saying it's a sign of failure on the way?

[Rodne Gold]

I have used synrad and Deos tubes , on both of them , failure to engrave the initial part of a graphic or failure to engrave the first job is NOT a good sign. I don't know about other makes of tube.
Perhaps a particular brand might have a firmware issue where this is the case , but I dont think it is generic to all lasers and tubes. Certainly not to mine.
I dont believe that failure to fire or having to add 1" of whitespace at the side of a drawing or workarounds like that are acceptable and would be a little sceptical of any mnfr that tells me its nothing. I would be doubly sceptical if it was not present when you got the laser and then developed thereafter , it should be fixable

[Larry Bratton]

I think I would be really upset after being told their was weekend tech support and then no one even bothered to call me back. What kind of service is that? Most of us work on weekends with these machines trying to make deadlines and the such. That should be one of the issues to consider in the purchasing decision. Just my 2 cents worth.

[Eric Allen]

Rodne, my laser is brand new so I hope it's not on it's last leg! Takes a few seconds, probably 2-3 seconds on that first run in the morning, and once it fires, then you can turn it off and on as many times as you want all day and it'll fire on the first line. It was even explained to us at installation that we should expect that. I've seen several threads on here mentioning similar issues, where people waited for 15-30 seconds before it would fire in the mornings.

I thought it was normal, but you're saying it's a sign of failure on the way?

It's been normal since we got ours for that to happen. Every day we do a test fire to make sure it's warmed up, usually doesn't fire the first .25 or so, then it's fine the rest of the day. I heard it was a mod to cut the infant mortality rate on Epilog's tubes. It takes longer when it's colder, we try to keep the whole thing between 70 and 90