Ok, so there was a post the other day about portable fiber lasers and the cabinet lasers. And I think this is relevant to anyone who has one.

I had need to engrave on a sheet of stainless steel 44"x84" for a customer. Initially thought about my big CO2 and cermark, but I decided it would be too hard to move around, into basement, and then through the laser. So I decided to use Fiber. So I took it to the sheet rather than the sheet to the laser. Into my little tractor's bucket, carpeted bottom, strapped it down where it wouldn't move.

Drove to my wood shop, (not far, but too far to tote up a hill and around the 200 feet or so) where I had set up the sheet inside the door. Tractor makes it pretty darn easy. Set it up on my rolling cart, and engraved a bunch of letters. Worked out pretty well. (time to do 3" letters is another story, but being a fiber, I could start a letter or letters depending on width and walk away for a while) Finished up today, took fiber down and back in bucket. No jarring, pulling or anything terrible.

Set back up to do some guns this afternoon. Turned it on and danged if the alignment LED pointer (outside head LED) wouldn't come on.
Well, I manually focused on the three different guns, Dang it, that LED sure makes this easy on something like an MP40. But I got them done.
Then the pieces of JDS leatherette (journals) that a customer wanted. Fiber does tremendously better on that stuff than my CO2. The CO2 will either not cut or cut too deep, just can't get power settings right.
(oh, being flat, focus is easy on the journals....)

Then I started troubleshooting. Moved cable around, nothing. Decided to see if I had bumped enough to jar connection loose inside box. No, everything there is well screwed down or glued down with silicone.
Found a splice in the cable a foot from the head, but nothing looked damaged and moving around did no good.

So I decided to pull off the top and see how to replace/where the first connection was located.
So here are some pictures of top cover off.
fiber head1.jpgFront to back Looks ok
fiber head2.jpgFarther back. Nothing yet
fiber head3.jpgBack towards the front
fiber head4.jpgWait, what's that?
fiber head5.jpgYep, connector is disconnected.
There are two plugs, one for each LED. They are wiretied pretty good, but on either side of their connection and they could move apart.
So I plugged back together and taped the joints. The rear plastic plates that 'hold' the cable in don't do a good job. Unlike the connection at the computer, the connection is pretty loose.
Before I move again, I'm going totape up enough that they can't move and pull anything loose.

So the moral of the story is to be careful, watch what you are doing when you are moving these portables.