Speedy 400 Ceramic tube replacement/refurb

[Scott Shepherd]

Having just bought another one, I can't say the price appeared to be any different than anything I've seen before. Kind of hard to compare now, since they haven't offered the Synrad tubes in about 7 years now, I don't guess. The warranty we got was longer than the warranty we got when we bought the one with the Synrad tube. The fans are louder, but I think that's because of the configuration to some degree. One thing that is quite different is the machine can be set to go to sleep. When it goes to sleep, the new machines actually appear to be off, where the older machines just go into a reduced power mode but are still running.

Its first day of production was a good one. If it does this for a month, it will pay for itself in a month.

I don't know of any manufacturer that's going to let their reps recommend a 3rd party repair firm for laser repair. In fact, I've always heard them tell you not to do that because they didn't hold to the same specs as the factory. Whether or not that's true, I have no idea, but I can't imagine taking your car to the Ford dealer and having them tell you it would be less expensive if you took it to a shop around the corner to have the engine repaired.

[Mike Null]

Having just purchased a Speedy 300 in January of this year I am of the opinion that prices have declined since I bought my first Trotec in 2006. I will not post what I paid then or now but if I needed another machine it would be a Trotec.

To Steve's point, these machines pay for themselves quickly and they retain their value remarkably well.

[donald bugansky]

Not sure if this helps, but I found the following on Evergreen Laser (also know as laser tech on Ebay) as it relates to the ceramic tubes.

"We have seen several Iradion tubes come in lately. We have recently received more Iradion model 156 lasers. Last month we fully equipped our stations and processes to handle recharging and repairing Iradion lasers. In the process, what we have found are leaks, gas imbalance and no starts. In regards to the hype- it is true that the tube is ceramic. Unfortunately, the mirror holders and mirrors are epoxied onto the ceramic. Adjustments for the mirrors are done through o-rings. This in our eyes, voids the hype of being a contaminant free ceramic tube that will last forever. We hear it is unable to be regassed. This is FALSE. We have successfully regassed several. In fact on the model 156 we often are seeing over 90W after recharge. The lasers do run very stable and appear to be robust. They run cool which is great for the electronics and the beam specifications are very good. To put facts behind the comments, we did both RGA tests to verify the gas imbalance and Helium leak checks to identify leaks in the tubes. Gas imbalance simply makes the laser the same as everyone else’s laser. It will last X amount of time. There is no unlimited lifetime because of the ceramic construction. Our main concern is the leaks in the tubes. Because of the epoxy joining metal to ceramic the Iradion tubes seem to be very temperature/ environmental dependent- i.e. changes in temperature are suspected to cause leaks.
Customers we have spoken to and end users of the machines seem to be under the impression that these tubes cannot be recharged. They most certainly can! And we can do it for roughly 30% of the cost of replacement. Do not discard them."

Hope this helps bring some clarity.

Bugs