Hi,
I have been reading this Forum for a long time, but I rarely post. I am an artist. I use my laser for other things as well, but its primary purpose is for my art. Most of the areas in which I have enough expertise to be helpful, dont come up here. I hope you can forgive my lack of contribution and consider lending your assistance with a problem anyway.
I have a 50-Watt, Universal Laser X660. It ran fine for a while, then one day the X-axis motor stopped but the Y-axis motor kept going. The problem appeared to be a blown L298N driver chip. I did not feel comfortable replacing it. I can solder and de-solder, but not perfectly enough to work on something that cost thousands of collars to replace. I paid an associate to do it.
I ran the machine again. It cut for about an hour. Then the Y-axis motor went out. It was the same problem. It was weird, but chips die. It could have been a coincidence. I have lots of L298N chips. I use them for unrelated things. I had my friend replace the chip again. This time, I made sure to use a brand-new chip from a different source, just in case the problem was a bad chip. I ran the machine. It only went for about 10 minutes. This time the X-axis went out again. Three blown chips are not a coincidence.
I am comfortable doing mechanical work on the machine, but I really struggle with electric work. I did the best I could. I checked the output of the power supply. Everything seems to be as it should be. I dont know what else could be wrong.
The man who replaced the driver chips for me is very good, but he is also somewhat slow, and his rates per/hour are very high. I dont know if they are higher than normal, but they are higher than I can afford. Id like to get a better idea of what could be wrong before I ask him to do anything else.
I have searched for useful information through the internet and the university academic database. The only thing I found that was similar was in an old post on this Forum. This is the link in case anyone remembers it.
https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....d-big-problems
This is everything I know about the machine in case it is necessary:
I bought the machine a broker, from an auction company. Universal gave me the information they could before I bought the machine, and a bit more afterwards. I knew buying a used machine was a gamble, but the price was low enough that even with repairs it would be a good deal. It was also all I could afford. The machine has the second laser option, but only one is installed. There is no air assist. It has a 32 x 18 bed.
I felt comfortable dealing with mechanical repairs so the first thing I did with the machine was to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together. I replaced all the belts. I was told that this probably was not necessary, and the belts seem to be in good repair, but I did it anyway. It wasnt that much extra trouble since I was already taking things apart to clean. I also replaced a small apart in the mechanism that lifts the bed. I noticed that the pulley that connects to the bottom of the one of the lead screws was touching the base of the machine and I knew that it should not. The problem was easy to see. The set screw that held things in place was stripped. It was an easy fix. I cleaned it again to be sure that it was pristine. Then I spent a good bit of time making sure it was perfectly aligned and calibrated. This was hard since I did not have all the correct tools, but I got it done. Then I called an engineer from my university and had him check and verify everything. He found no flaws. Once that was done, I had the laser cartridge recharged and replaced all the optics including the Beam window. Everything was old and obviously worn out, so this was necessary. I also added a 1.5 lens. I replaced the honeycomb material in the bed. The machine ran perfectly after that for some time.
I run the machine with the exhaust system that came with it. It is an older system that has been phased out, but the filters and cartridges are still available. I contacted the company that makes it. They were as helpful as they could be. They didnt have all the technical information, but they gave me everything they could and helped me to get the system set up. The person I spoke to said that it sounded like the system was not big enough for the laser, but he could not be sure because of the changes that were made in later models. I see no indication that this is the case. I am supposed to be able to set it up to adjust the air flow, but we couldnt find instructions to that, so I just run it on its highest setting. The smoke disappears almost instantly. It clears visibly faster than the similarly sized machine at my university. I think it is fine.