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.
-K