Not sure I thoroughly understand your situation before making recommendations on how to fix it. Have you determined it is a bad LPS?
Can you tell us what machine and controller you have?
Your machine works ok but with reduced power?
You earlier asked about the 5V potentially being the problem. Did you test that?
Is it possible for you to provide an indication of what the tube current reads at various “IN” Voltages like the graph in earlier posts.
would i be better if fixing this power supply or buying a new one?
These supplies are pretty cheap and a new HV transformer costs 1/2-2/3 of the cost of a new supply. That assumes your HVT is what is bad, if not you will spend more $ and a lot more repair time. Purchase is a less risky albeit a little more expensive option.
And if I buy a replacement, can I get one rated for 50w and drop it in… Or would that require some modifications?
You can get a 50w supply but probably not “drop in”. Depending on the supply you currently have vs the one you get you may need to rewire. I would go to a 60-80W if your going to go through the trouble of changing the supply type.
These choices are more budget driven …
I have a mostly stock K40 with the M2(?) controller. The version I have has a ebrake button (big red button) and a digital readout for the temp as well as the laser power output. Machine does run, but laser is very weak (power drops off sharply). How do I test the 5v (any youtube videos I can be linked to)? I can provide the tube info you asked for if I am shown how to find that. I am fairly adept at figuring stuff out if I have instructions to work with. I don’t wanna go in blindly and possibly make things worse because I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. Would rather wing it with tutorials vs wing it without.
Good to know about the HVT. I’m still pretty new to the repair side of things, but can pick up on things if I’m given enough info to work with.
Thanks for the info about going the route of upgrading to a more powerful power supply. That also gives me a good idea about future plans as well.
If you machine does not have a ma power meter characterizing the tube will be more difficult as you will have to hook up a DVM for the voltage and a DVM for the current.
If you are up to that I can give you instructions otherwise you can buy a new LPS and try that then if that does not fix it get a tube. Worse case you have an extra supply if the tube ends up being bad.
I have the meter, but I hacked up the mounting plate, so I wanted to get the laser up and running to make the plate out of acrylic.
I know I should have the switches installed, but I have been very good up to this point with my workflow that would prevent me from starting a job with the lid open. Basically, and don’t laugh, but the wireless mouse needs to be placed on the lid to get signal, and I cannot start the job unless the lid is down. Yes, it doesn’t prevent me from opening the lid after it is started.
I’ll take the instructions anyway. I’m going to try to get this figured out in the next couple of weeks because I want/need my machine back up to normal functionality. I have a backup option that I’ve been working with, but I don’t wanna get used to my backup option, nor do I wanna let my machine sit unused/unusable for too long. I’ll weigh all my options and go from there. Do we have any links in the forum to YouTube vids detailing how to replace any parts on stock/semi-stock K40s? I’d love to watch a video or read a blog with accompanying pictures if I can get my hands on either to help me follow some sort of proceedure to minimize the possibility of me screwing things up worse by winging it. It all may be way more straight-forward than I’m imagining, but I’d rather not risk it (at least until I get a second machine that I’m willing to hack and possibly break -unintentionally- that wouldn’t upset me because I made a mistake).
Do we have any links in the forum to YouTube vids detailing how to replace any parts on stock/semi-stock K40s? I’d love to watch a video or read a blog with accompanying pictures if I can get my hands on either to help me follow some sort of proceedure to minimize the possibility of me screwing things up worse by winging it.
What can we do to help … what do you want to repair?
No worries. I’ll read that link over and see if I can fully understand what’s going on there (gave it a quick glance and didn’t absorb enough to be sure if I’ll fully understand it later). As far as the YouTube videos, that was a secondary curiousity/question and hope that something like this had already been started and could be linked to. But I’ll be doing some YouTube searching myself and collecting links in the not-too-distant future. I may have ran that all together and came off confusing. Sorry about that.
In the grand scheme of things… disassembly and reassembly of everything. But if I had to pick something specific, I’d have to think on it and would likely lean toward the things necessary to fix my current problem. What those things are, I still need to make time to clearly narrow down (which would also be nice to have… some troubleshooting guides).
because I made a mistake).
But if I had to pick something specific, I’d have to think on it and would likely lean toward the things necessary to fix my current problem. What those things are, I still need to make time to clearly narrow down (which would also be nice to have… some troubleshooting guides).