Hi i got my laser cutter yesterday,

Hi i got my laser cutter yesterday, and after much fiddling i have finally got all the mirrors sorted out, and am ready to to do some test pieces. So i started to do my first piece, and whilst the machine is operating i sometimes hear a snap/cracking noise coming from it, the laser tube, i’m guessing, is this normal? i have my pump attached and switched on, water is flowing. Kind of wary of using it until i find out if the noise i am hearing is normal. Thanks

Yeah, tube should not e making any noise (unless you have your ear right up against it and you’re hearing the high voltage buzzing.)

Thanks for the responses, it turns out i had a small bubble in the tube, cleared now, hopefully that will sort it.

Bubbles can be fatal to the tube. Whenever I drain my tube (only happened once so far), I end up having to tilt the machine a bit to get the last of the bubbles out. Tedious but doable.

Spot on @Ashley_M_Kirchner_No , in my machine I rotated the tube and re aligned because the water outlets were facing downwards meaning any bubble would get trapped. My water outlets now face up so if any bubble does work it’s way in they go straight back out

yeah it was just a tiny bubble, i pretty much had to stand the machine on end to get rid of it. I was still getting the noise after clearing it, so i lifted the tube cover this time when i heard it and i could see electricity sparks arcing from the end of the tube to the case, this cant be normal right?

Check the wiring, make sure you have good contact to the tube’s terminals.

And that’s why you need to always make sure you have decent earthing! 20,000 volts would do you some serious damage!

The wiring was ok, you did point me in the right direction though :slight_smile: Turns out there was no rubber insulating tube around it, just a little hot glue. I popped some on there and it seems to be fine now. Just done my first couple of test pieces, very happy with the results. Thanks for the help and advice, i really appreciate it.

Yeah, I don’t know how much of ‘quality control’ there is with these things. It’s best to always check everything before turning things on. I’ve had plugs come un-wired, or just twisted together, not soldered or anything. Other stuff that comes loose during shipping … I took my time and spent two days visually inspecting and touching everything, making sure it’s all properly attached or soldered before I fired the thing up. And even then, I made sure there was someone else there when I test fired the laser, in case something went completely wrong and I caused a mushroom cloud instead. :slight_smile:

Yes it was! Lol