Epilog Laser Trickle

[Stephen Beckham]

Quote from their website about new drivers the for the Mini:

Laser Tickle: Enhancements have been made to the way CO2 laser tubes pre-ionize. This change can be set by the user and will ensure that the laser tube fires immediately, even after having set idle for long periods of time.

Question - has anyone worked with this yet? I'm happy with having to run the laser for about 4-8 seconds on the first burn of the day on scrap. Then the rest of the day the tube fires w/o problems.

I'm tempted to play with it - but as with always - fixing something that isn't broke leads to $$$ in repair costs... Any takers yet? Any success?


OT - I'm embarassed that I feel I need to put "not bashing Epilog" in the title to feel like I'm not going to be poked at myself...

[Jim Watkins]

Since I am probably the newest owner of the Epilog, I will ask my distributer in a week or two when I set up my training.

I'll ask him point blank about this sitting idle for long periods and report what he says. Steve seems to be an upstanding guy and I believe he will give me a strait answer.

[Gary Hair]

The easy way to "cure" this "problem" is to power up the laser, or wake it up, before you finish your drawing that you will be lasering. The 60 second or so mine takes is never a big deal when i do this. Oh, and mine is a GCC/Pinnacle/Laserpro - if your laser has a standby mode this behavior will happen, it's not just Epilog. And I don't think it's something I would want "cured" - I want it to go into standby mode if I'm not using it.

Gary

[Rodne Gold]

I would rather have my laser fire immediately , imagine trying to overtake a car and your engine dies as you press the pedal!!!
If you have a one off item and the laser doesnt fire for the first few scans , its almost impossible to recover. Perhaps you remember to do a "pre engraving" engraving , but what if you forget.
I doubt the trickle voltage applied has an effect on tube life , where it might have an effect is in promoting shadowing. We have found that if the Trickle voltage is too high , the laser prefires before it really should and on some materials we get shadowing on the engraving (most prevalent with Flexibrass)

[Kenneth Hertzog]

Steve
Not sure what you are having a problem with. I've had my mini about six weeks now and I've had no standby mode or problem firing. I turn it on walk across the room to the computor and send the file, walk back and press go.
will be interested to know why the delay.
ken
hope we haven't scared Peck away i'm sure he can answer this question.

[Stephen Beckham]

Sorry - not having any problems. The key to the thread was Epilog's comment that the new driver improves firing time.

Again - I love my Mini and I can live with the 4 second delay in my first burn every morning.

I was asking if anyone has used the desired steps to adjust the settings under the new drivers (which works for the Helix as well according to the support page).

I'm leaning towards not trying to improve something if there is no need. But if someone else has testimony that these settings do improve the system - I'd try them.

[Dave Jones]

Steve, my understanding is that most users do not have to do anything but install the new firmware and driver. That feature gets enabled and then works for almost all lasers made since the change in laser tube manufacturing a year or so ago. Only in a small number of cases do you have to tweak the numbers to match the tube. And that feature can always be turned off if you aren't happy with it.

[Bill Cunningham]

I've had my legend 24TT for a few years now, and it's never failed to fire first time, everytime, right from the very first millimeter in either raster or vector..

[Dave Jones]

The delayed firing was something that would only be found in Epilogs manufactured in the last year and a half or so. The laser tube manufacturer changed the design around then, which caused the problem. The design change was actually to solve a different problem where tubes were dying at an early age.

So lasers that are a couple of years or older didn't have the delayed start problem.

[Roy Brewer]

Any takers yet? Any success?

Stephen,
Dave Jones, as usual, is 100% correct in all comments on what I call the "Monday morning warm up." No one, to my knowledge, has needed to make any adjustment to eliminate this condition. Actually, the adjustment utility to which you refer should not be attempted unless instructed by Epilog tech support.

If your question is "Since this condition doesn't bother me, should I bother to upgrade?" Then, IMHO, you are asking the wrong question.

Forget the tickle! You will use the other features (e.g., Center/Center) regularly and will love them. While pretty straightforward, some were a bit intimidated by having to upgrade both the firmware and the Print Driver, so Epilog now has a tutorial on their web site to step one through the process.

[Stephen Beckham]

Roy and Dave,

Thanks - I heard what I wanted to hear. I put the new firmware on the machine a couple days after it came out. And yes the center functions were the draw.

I have no intentions of changing the other settings - I'll stick with my 4 second warm up every morning... May do some exercise while waiting...

[Jeff DeVore]

"The delayed firing was something that would only be found in Epilogs manufactured in the last year and a half or so."
I have an Epilog Legend EX with a 75 watt tube that was made about 4 years ago and it takes it sometimes 30-60 seconds to start firing when it has not been fired for a while. Otherwise it takes about 5-10 second to fire on the first job every day and then works the rest of the day without a problem. The first couple of years I had it I didn't have this problem. I sure wish there was an upgrade for my machine as I would love to be able to use the features it covers.

[Nigel Morgan]

Here is the data sheet from the tube manufacturer that Epilog use, they are helping me solve the mystery short life, though they advertise long life seals, hope the attachment works.

[Shane Turner]

Would appreciate that information Nigel. May explain some of the issues I've been having regarding the drop off on power here.

Could you post it as a plain PDF ( not zipped ) I'm having trouble with the compressed file.

[Nigel Morgan]

Hi Shane,

File too large, the manufacturer over in Australia is very helpful, I'll try and email it to you.

Cheers

Nigel