Well!! It finally happened..

[Bill Cunningham]

I was doing some cutting, and I Thought the laser had lost some power.. Most of what I do is raster, and on easy stuff to mark, like granite, marble, and glass, so the power drop was not all that obvious. I knew it was down, so I figured I would do some tests just to see how down it was.. When I first got the machine, I burnt some sample text at various speeds.. So I dug out the old board, and ran the same text at the same speed.. Jeeeeze.. was it low..My steering mirror also had a slight bad spot.. So sent a email to tech support at epilog, and Dan called me back in about a half hour.. He told me to burn some tape on the target to check the alignment and get back to him.. I did that, and there was not enough power it would seem to even put a burn mark on the tape.. I could barely see it in the #1 and #2 position, and in the #3 and #4 positions, 15 seconds at 50% power 100% speed would not even mark the tape..
I emailed Dan again, and I sent him pictures of the target, and the left mirror, and the sample burn next to the one I did 4.5 years ago.. He called me back and suggested I replace the mirror, and by the looks of it I was going to need a new tube.. So, I bit the bullet and ordered it.. this was 2pm Thursday afternoon, and the tube, mirror, and alignment tool was in my grubby hands at noon on Friday.. (their in Colorado, I'm 50 miles north of Toronto Ontario.. Thats FAST) .. I Just finished installing the tube, mirror, doing the alignment and testing the new tube.. WoW.. What a difference, even compared to the original tube when it was new.. Looks like I got a good one.. Ran the same raster burn test on the pine that I did 4.5 years ago, on Thursday, and now today.. .The burn on the left is the original new machine, (1mm deep) the middle is obviously the dead tube burn, (abt. 1/4mm deep) and the right (2 mm deep :D )
There, now I'm all set for the next 4.5 years.. (Dan told me the new tube has a 2 year warranty, so I'm OK for 2 years anyway) Like I said in the "Hows business thread" We live on the "tread water law".. I had a fantastic April, a Great May, and made money. Sooo Along comes the bill to absorb some of it.. As it is, I lucked out that the thing didn't crap out during a slow period.. I won't lose a minutes work, and I'm currently booked up for for at least the first two weeks of June.. Even though it cost me 1200 bucks (including overnight shipping to Canada) It could have been a lot worse I guess... That old tube paid for itself many times over...

[Stephen Beckham]

Bill - glad to hear it turned out very well considering what could have happened.

I'm only at 27-28 months of use on my Mini 24 and every Monday when I start it up - I'm wondering if I hit that mark yet... The "tubes lasts 3-5 years" part has me scared a bit... Hearing successful swaps like yours makes it less frightening - now if I can just get it to happen in or around a good part of the season as yours did...

Otherwise - not only with the bank own my laser, Mr. Visa will own my tube...:eek:

[David Fairfield]

$1,200... actually that ain't too bad. The price came down from what my rep told me when I made the initial purchace. And somehow I got the idea in my head I had to ship the machine back to the factory.

Thanks for the post, I feel better. :)

Dave

[Bill Cunningham]

Actually, the swap out was pretty simple.. On mine, I just had to unplug two harness connections, remove 8 screws, lift out the tube, and then do the same thing in reverse.. The only thing that had me a bit worried was the alignment because I took off the entire left mirror, holder and all, to replace the mirror on the bench where I wouldn't be dropping any screws into the laser cabinet. when I put it back on, I had no idea where it would be aiming. So what I did, was use the red dot for a preliminary adjustment, just to make sure the beam was actually going to hit the target before I started the alignment procedure using the alignment tool supplied by Epilog (it just sits on the front and plugs into the multi pin plug in the cabinet, then fires the laser when you push the switch) The beam was right on target in position 1 and 2, and had to do a very minor adjustment to the left mirror for position 3 & 4.. I'm glad mirrors 1 & 2 were fine, because you need a 3mm ball end allen key to adjust the first and second mirror inside the front (it's like a periscope) and I didn't have one. After checking, I could have done it with a normal key that had a short end.. Once all was done, I made a small dot on a piece of cardboard, moved the red dot to the cardboard dot, read the position on the LCD, and put a dot on the corel page in the same place. I then sent it to the engraver, it moved into position, and burned exactly the right place. so now I know the red dot is accurate too. Not only is this a good tube, it cuts 1/8 acrylic mirror through masking on both sides at 20% speed.. The old one when new cut it at 11% speed.. All in all, I can't really complain, the old tube certainly had paid for itself.. Other than the cost (which 'has' come down) It was a pleasant learning experience