Laser cutter not cutting but can see a red color arc

Lasers
1

Hello folks,
I am new to this community, I am working as part of a hardware startup and one of the co-founders. Recently we have moved to a new incubator where laser cutter a present.It wasn’t used for a long time at the incubator. My assumption is the laser cutter is Chinese as there is no brand for it. I have used the laser cutter for 2 days and the experience was great, and I was happy that my fabrication process can be done faster. But yesterday when I started operating the axes of the laser machine some how got inverted that when I press the Y+ it will go to Y- and vice verse. Also the homing was not functioning properly.Some how under the machine configuration I was able to fix it. But when I performed a test laser cutting, the laser engraving happened initially, the cutting wasn’t performed and then the lasing wasn’t working. When ever I perform the cut operation, I can see a red color electric arc at one end of the machine.I am not sure whether the laser tube has been damaged or not because the machine is pretty new and it hasn’t been used very widely. I am attaching videos of the system.

Here is the burned end of the tube : Laser Tube

Any help would be appreciated in the debugging process.I am helpless on the regard that laser tube has to be replaced by the incubator as this laser machine don;t belong to me , but I wan’t it to be working so that others can access the machine without any trouble.

2

I’m not a fan of magic and firmware on these lasers don’t usually, hardly ever, just change by themselves and need to be reconfigured. Are you saying when you went to the machine an operated it with the control panel it would not home and the movement was reverse in the Y axis? Or are you saying your software on your computer didn’t home the machine first and when you click on the UI in the software it moved the machine in opposite directions?

As for the arcing, that’s not good and can harm the LPS. There is some HV sealant which is used on K40 and other machines when replacing the laser tube which might insulate the connection were the arcing is occuring.

Can you show a picture of the control panel and also tell us about the water cooling system and tell us if there are any safety switches on the door to the build area, door on the laser and water flow protection?

3 Likes
3

There could be an insulation problem but usually arching at the anode is due to a bad tube.
Continuous arching can damage the LPS.

Typical reasons the tube could be bad.
–Tube has worn out
–Tube overheated