HELP - Laser loses power 1 milliamp an hour and it isnt the tube or water chiller...

Please please can someone help me.

I have a 150w LS5598 Boss Laser (5'x12' size) running it at 85% power at 19mm/s on 1/4" plywood.

But over time (total of 45 min) it's been slowly dropping in power from 28 milliamps down to 27 and keeps going. By that time the machine struggles to cut through and it starts getting smoky real quick.

I've been battling this f-ing laser for the last 3 years and the last 3 weeks have pushed me to my limit. In that time span, ive replaced the xaxis motor, the laser tube, a proximity sensor, and the x-axis pulley too.

However, after getting it ALL installed and ready to work, i finally go to start up the cut job, the laser fires perfectly for the first 30 min. Until i noticed the milliamp reader is lower than it was initally.

The water chiller is fresh, clean and i even changed its temps from 20 deg Celsius to 15 deg celsius with no real improvement.

Power supply isn't new but it also isn't old. The tube was replaced because i had broken the previous one. The old setup worked fine but then I installed this 150 watt GSI tube and this happens, is it a power supply issue?

LENS AND MIRRORS ARE ALIGNED AND CLEAN. PLUS THESE DONT AFFECT THE MILLIAMP READER GOING DOWN.

I would truly appreciate any help in this matter.
Regards,
Brady

What chiller do you have. It sounds like the water maybe heating up

Is the chiller staying at your set temp? 15 as set point is low, is it going up to 25?
How about the PS? is it getting hot in the cabinet? I'd maybe open it up and put fan on it to see if it is heating up.
You might have bad cooling fan on it.

Ever since I've owned my 80w Triumph, which I don't really do much cutting with, I've noticed when I DO cut (usually 1/8" thick) that the mA's do drop over time. And I'm also noticing a trend in laser ads where I see the 'para'phrase "please allow to cool laser tube after use 30 minutes"...

And it does affect my cuts, as I use BARELY enough power to get thru to prevent flashback from the honeycomb gooing up the backside, and many times the last few pieces won't be cut thru and I have to either re-cut those or sand off the 'perforations' on the bottom edges.

I'm not a laser guru but it seems 'normal operating procedure' for glass lasers to do this, some to more extent than others I assume. I don't the why, I just know mine does it. The fix- let the tube cool down every so often. Just conjecture but I'm thinking that there's 'other things' going on within the entire system of firing a DC laser continuously over long periods of time that simple cold water won't address, like wiring resistance changing due to heat absorption over time within the low and high voltage workings...? Hell, I don't know, but maybe try letting the tube- and everything else?- cool off for a few minutes after running hard for 20-30 minutes...

And for what it's worth, my Triumph will be 6 years old in November, and aside from a broken stepper motor wire within the drag chain creating a nuisance, I've had no trouble with this beast--
--- knock on my head--- :D



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It sounds like your chiller is a few years old. Is it pumping the water strongly, have you checked the flow? The water pump can get clogged up reducing flow. Changing out the water does not fix that. It is not too hard to take apart and clean the pump.

I have had my machine run for hours and hours on end with no reduction in power. In my experience it is not normal for the power to slowly decrease.