Speedy 400 Ceramic tube replacement/refurb

[Bryce Mccloud]

Hi there laser community.

I know a lot of you have a great deal of experience with the various options out there and have been down these roads before me. Hoping to get a little advice.

What options you have found to replace/repair a Trotec ceramic laser tube? Mine's has a 120watt tube which is currently firing at about 38 watts.

I've been talking with my salesman and Trotec support which both are very responsive and great to deal with. Thanks to both of them!

We are still tracking down a few possibilities that might be the culprit...but more and more it's looking like its the tube. So I'm doing my research on viable paths forward.

The factory is quoting about $4200 for a new tube these days plus install.
not sure if there are any other reputable options. A few years ago I figured out that I could find lenses from other suppliers for quite a bit less than the factory price. All the tube threads I've read all seem to be about non ceramic tubes.

For reference - I've had my speedy 400 for 5 years. We replaced a tube at about one year under warranty.

Thanks for you help.
Bryce

[Jacob John]

I'm not sure where your 10-year number comes from, but I've seen the bell curve of laser failures and no one in the industry is telling people 10-year lifespans on lasers. The bell curve showed 4-6 year years and then it rapidly dropped off with very few tubes ever lasting 10 years. If it did, it was far outside the norm. That was an internal document from a manufacturer so I know the number was accurate.

All laser rebuilding costs have gone up a lot over the last few years. Anything over 4-5 years and you're living on borrowed time.

4-6 years regardless of use?

[Scott Shepherd]

4-6 years regardless of use?

Use has little to do with the life. If I could locate the file that had the lifespan on it, I would post it here. It was from an advanced training seminar Universal put on years ago. There was a presentation that went through a lot of information and one of those slides was the bell curve of the lifespan. They talked in depth about what to expect, etc.

Remember, statistics are just that. In order to get the curve, you have to have failures at 6 months and failures at 12 years. Neither of those failures in this normal, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. There's a big difference in the personal experiences of a couple of users and statistics based on 1000's of users.

[Bill George]

I thought the new ceramic tube was an improvement?

[Scott Shepherd]

I thought the new ceramic tube was an improvement?

I'm not following your logic. 1 or 2 people say their tube failed in the normal failure rate and you believe that means all of them are inferior to previous models? That makes no sense. There is no implied additional lifespan with the Ceramic core tubes. It's just like someone switching from Coherent brand to Synrad. Trotec switched to Ceramic. Will Ceramic core tubes have failures? Yes. Will some of them be on the upside of the bell curve for failures? Yes. Does that mean they aren't better than a standard metal core tube? No.

I know many Epilog people with tube failures far earlier than the 4-5 years. Does that mean their tubes are inferior? I wouldn't imply that. It just means that the people I know have had failures. Doesn't mean there aren't 100's or 1000's of people out there getting better life out of them, it's just one data point. One data point doesn't make a trend.

Considering they released them 6-8 years ago and this is the first posted failure of 1 on this forum, I'd say that's pretty darn amazing.

[Keith Outten]

My Speedy 300 was one of the very first Trotec machines shipped with a ceramic tube. At the time (January 2012) Trotec had not advertised that the technology was available, in fact I was told on the phone that there would be something special about my machine but Trotec could not tell me what it was at the time. After a couple months I found the information about the Trotec ceramic core tubes on their web site and checked my machine to see if the label was attached. That is when I found out about the ceramic tube in my machine. Based on my experience I doubt anyone has a ceramic tube that is older then, lets say, 7 years unless they had acquired a beta testing machine.

I don't know for a fact what the timeline has been but these are the facts in my case.

[Kev Williams]

So am I understanding this right, that even the electronics in/on a ceramic laser can't be repaired?

Of course they can be repaired. Our lasers don’t owe us anything. They make us a lot of money. The Trotec rocked out $2000 worth of work on Friday. Not sure I’m going to complain too much about having to replace a known perishable item when it’s raking the money in for us.

There were several mentions of 'the electronics go bad' and 'completely sealed' but not much about repairs- which is a good thing- so I was just asking!

So then, more questions...

being 'totally sealed', is the life span of the gas supposedly indefinite?

And for the most part, aren't a laser tube's electronics be able to be repaired indefinitely?

If yes to both of the above, then why would it be necessary, other than personal choice or an actual break of some sort, to ever replace a ceramic tube when electronic repairs are so much less expensive? Or metal tubes for that matter?

--I may be coming off as snarky here, but that's not my intent, I consider these legitimate questions. Regardless of how much we do or don't 'owe to our machines', future maintenance and repair costs to our machinery ARE important, especially for someone with 15 machines to keep running! I've been in this business full time for 42 years, and I've only had 2 'major' part failures in all that time, the first (LS900 power supply) was exchanged for a rebuilt unit overnight, $1700 to my door; the second (IS7000 power supply) is in my rep's shop being repaired at his leisure while I'm using one of his spare's. I've been lasering since 2002 and have never had a tube failure. I did replace the tube in the ULS in 2005 just because a cheap rebuilt became available. Even my nearly 5 year old RECI hasn't lost a step. Knock on my head all of the above, if anyone's living on borrowed time...

Keyword for me is 'rebuilt'. If it can't be rebuilt, I likely won't buy it. I realize all the ceramic tubes in service are essentially working prototypes, and the oldest ones are just barely reaching 'average' life-span age, so I'm not expecting firm answers to my questions.

[Bill George]

I thought the new ceramic tube was an improvement?

Sorry Scott, but if its a new and improved tube and its more money, should it not be better? I just asked a simple question. No matter how much money its making you, its still taking money out of your bottom line.

If my new $47,000 Chevy pickup engine goes bad at 75,000 miles.... its oh well you did get a lot of miles it will be just $6000 for a new engine. It was actually a friends 2012 Silverado and it was 130,000 miles.

[Scott Shepherd]

I thought the new ceramic tube was an improvement?

Sorry Scott, but if its a new and improved tube and its more money, should it not be better? I just asked a simple question. No matter how much money its making you, its still taking money out of your bottom line.

If my new $47,000 Chevy pickup engine goes bad at 75,000 miles.... its oh well you did get a lot of miles it will be just $6000 for a new engine. It was actually a friends 2012 Silverado and it was 130,000 miles.

It's really simple Bill. If Chevy comes out with a "new, better" motor and someone you know has one that fails at 35,000 miles, then that doesn't make everyone ever made poorer quality than the previous motors. That's my point. The ceramic core tubes aren't "new". There was a company making them for years and years before Trotec took them on. Obviously they have data that shows higher performance.

2 years ago, Universal doubled or tripled the pricing for recharging tubes. You used to be able to get a tube recharged for $1,200, which was 1/2 the cost of an Epilog replacement. Then they bumped that up to $2,400 or $3,000. They didn't change anything. It was the same tubes, no new tech. Epilog tubes can run you $5,000-6,000 as well.

It's just a fact these days that tubes are expensive. If you want to compare price and life, then we'd have a fair comparison, but just throwing one event out and calling that the normal is not making much sense to me.

[Jacob John]

Use has little to do with the life. If I could locate the file that had the lifespan on it, I would post it here. It was from an advanced training seminar Universal put on years ago. There was a presentation that went through a lot of information and one of those slides was the bell curve of the lifespan. They talked in depth about what to expect, etc.

Remember, statistics are just that. In order to get the curve, you have to have failures at 6 months and failures at 12 years. Neither of those failures in this normal, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. There's a big difference in the personal experiences of a couple of users and statistics based on 1000's of users.

Gotcha. I always understood that tubes degraded over time regardless of use, I also thought a less used machine would still likely outlive one that runs 10 hours a day. Good info. But if end of life is end of life (say 4-6 years), that's good info to know and should also be calculated when considering things like Trocare.

[Matt McCoy]

Just curious: If it's ~$4,500 + installation for a 120 W tube, how much for an 80 W tube and installation? Are metal tubes still available from Trotec?

[Mike Null]

Metal tubes are not available from Trotec in new equipment. You can do the install yourself.

[Matt McCoy]

Not speaking for Bill, but It's my understanding that he's referring to the possibility that switching to a ceramic tube, which may or may not be able to be replaced by the manufacturer, as opposed to repaired by a 3rd party, only increases the yearly operating cost of the Trotec laser. Quick and dirty math would put it at ~$1,000/year, for the tube alone and in this scenario.

[Scott Shepherd]

We got ours about a month before Keith if I recall correctly. We got the last of the Synrad tube. We had to have a machine because we had a large order and the machine was bought to do that order. That would put us in December 2011. Since December of 2011, we've spent zero dollars on it. Only parts replaced were the ones that needed to be replaced when we managed to catch it on fire. Mainly, 1 belt and the air assist tubing. I'd say that 6 1/2 years and zero dollars spent on it is pretty darn impressive. If Keith had the same experience, that's 6 1/2 years minus 1 month with zero maintenance. I still firmly believe that our machine doesn't owe us anything. It's done well for us.

[Matt McCoy]

I don't think it's zero. You will need to put aside some money in the piggy bank for the expense of replacing the tube in ~5 years. In my example above, it's about a $1,000/year against the operation of a consumable. This is only a simple example, though.