Picked up at 50w Triumph fiber laser. Has worked wonders for the business, but in the last 3 months or so it seems to have lost some of it's juice. We first noticed that it would seem to engrave unevenly when doing a pass right-to-left. It would engrave lightly on the right, and get better as it moved left. We ended up moving the laser head closer to the work piece (Work piece is flat). This seemed to even it out. We've had to do this about 3 times now, and each time we've lost considerable power overall. It's beginning to show signs of uneven etching again. This uneven etching across the X axis seems to be the biggest red flag.
Since it's peak season we got a 2nd 50w Triumph. Exact model. That machine is etching perfectly, and you can really tell the difference. I'd say we've lost nearly half the power on the old one vs. the new.
Things we've looked at:
Lens is clean. We swapped lenses between the 2 and the new laser cuts just as well and the old laser cuts just as bad.
Galvo mirrors look very very clean. I could clean them, though they look pretty delicate up there.
I do not know how to check the alignment of the laser the way you can with a gantry machine. Any tips on this?
I'm very well versed in X Y Gantry lasers, so this galvo laser is new territory. What else should I be looking at? Laser has around 200 firing hours on it, maybe 300 tops.