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Thread: GCC LaserPro Mercury 25W Power Evaluation

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2016
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    9

    GCC LaserPro Mercury 25W Power Evaluation

    I acquired an original Mercury I /Pinnacle 25W laser essentially for free. It’s in nice shape, the Synrad tube has a mfg date of 2005. I was told the laser was weak and probably needed a re-gas. It was used in a manufacturing environment, not sure how many hours per day. It was primarily used to cut adhesive decals.
    It was pretty dirty inside so I pulled the lens & mirrors, cleaned them per SOP & did a thorough cleaning on the cabinet. I reinstalled the mirrors and
    performed a beam path alignment. The beam path was out a good bit and may have been for some time. Looking at the table & residue, it looks like the beam got weaker as the Y axis approached the 18” limit. Anyway, I did the initial test shot at a box placed ~10 ft away straight out of the laser and it burnt a spot using 5% & 10% power. I performed the beam alignment after confirming the output. I went thru the axis alignment as well. It’s spot on now at all limits of travel.
    My question is, without a laser power meter, is there a subjective way to judge the output by using a material/power/speed to determine if the output is nominal? I cut paper with it when setting the XY position and I ran the imbedded test page on a sheet cardboard. I obviously don’t want to spend a
    lot of money on a re-gas if it doesn’t need it, and
    likewise I don’t want to dump a lot of money in it given it’s age tho it’s a substantially better quality machine than the chicom eBay specials.

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  2. #2
    Best way I can think of to 'subjectively' test without a meter is to compare your cut speeds to known cut speeds.

    And the best material to use that I could help with would be Romark (or equivalent) stock or clear cast acrylic/plexiglas.

    1/8 thick would be ideal because, a 25w laser should be able to get thru it without being excruciatingly slow

    1/16" thick is okay too. Wood is too variable, plastics are more consistent...

    What to do.. Take whatever thickness you have, set at 100% power and figure out the fastest speed that will cut thru fully in one pass...
    IF you can't thru 1/8" thick in one pass, and especially so with 1/16", chances are your tube is or going bad...

    If you succeed, grab a stopwatch. Take the material and put a mark about 1" from the left edge of the material. Place your cut so it starts AT the left edge of the material. With stopwatch in hand, start the laser. When it passes your 1" mark, start the timer... when the timer reaches 10 seconds, STOP THE MACHINE.

    Now measure from the 1" mark to the end of the cut. Now you have an accurate inch-per-second measurement of your machine's fastest speed at full power.

    Come back an post the results here

    I have several machines in various wattages, I can calculate what SHOULD be close to 20 watts output on each machine. It will only take a few minutes to find an average to compare against your results...

    Others can join in too
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2016
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    9
    Using 1/8” Romark, with the protective film removed, the speed setting to achieve a clean cut at 100% power (25W spec Synrad laser) is 0.6% Timing it works out to be between 8-9 sec/in. Laser has a job timer and I also timed it with the stopwatch. Laser timer count is a little longer. According to the machine spec, it has a max speed of 42/in min which can’t be right because .6% of 42 in/min isn’t anywhere close to what I measured. The suggested start settings in the laser manual for acrylic are .4% speed, max 3/8” capability. Laserable plastic speed 2.7% max 1/4” capability. Not sure where Romark falls in there. Anyway, the 1/8” Romark speed works out to be between 7.5 in/min to 6.6 in/min. Measured in a 1” cut and a 10” cut. 1:24 for a 10” cut on the laser counter, a few sec less with the stop watch.

  4. #4
    I'm going to guess the speed spec is 42 in/SECOND, not minute, likely a typo, and based on a video I watched of one in action, 42"/sec seems about right. My GCC Explorer runs at 80" per second...

    I'll do some testing when I catch a break
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  5. #5
    As to your laser counter taking longer, that's likely because it starts counting when you press the start button, it's adding the non-working time...

    So I tested my 35w GCC, Synrad too btw... And as I'm typing this I just realized I made a bit of a math error, but that actually works better concerning your machine

    The error: I divided your 30 watts by my 35 watts and got 83.33%, and used 84% power... but you have a 25 watt machine! So what I SHOULD have entered was 72%...

    I had to get the speed % down to .6% to get a clean pass, .8% didn't quite make it.

    I drew a 1x1" box onto some scrap black aluminum, then placed a 1.5" long line thru it, overrunning the edges.

    My time to traverse the 1" was 7.1 seconds. A bit shy of your 8-9 seconds. BUT, let's factor my error back in:
    I was 12% off on the power value, so 7.1 seconds x 12% to the time brings it to almost exactly 8 seconds!

    Since I know my machine is working okay,
    and both machines are the same age, same brand, and fitted with a Synrad laser,
    and both machines almost duplicated exactly the time to cut thru 1/8" Rowmark--
    I'd say your tube is fine!
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2016
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    9
    Great, thank you so much for taking the time to do this! I also ran at .8% and had the same result, not quite thru but enough that I was able to snap it free. Glad to know that after some maintenance effort on my part that I scored a machine with a little life left in it. Now I can move forward on a more permanent fume extraction setup and air assist plumbing.

    A question maybe you can answer, the X & Y are servo driven and the Z is a stepper motor, do you know if the optional GCC rotary axis is stepper or servo drive?

  7. #7
    My rotary is servo driven-- makes it very cool -- but can also cause problems because it's capable of rotating very fast; heavy items can lose their place...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


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