Hi Stan,
Your loss of power is most likely tied to the double beam coming out of the laser tube. You either have a damaged mirror on the tube itself or your tube has shifted to a different TEM mode (TEM01 gives 2 spots). Either one is not repairable and would require a new tube. If this is a new machine I would contact the seller.
TEM explainer:
- The power density across the diameter of a laser output beam is not uniform and is dependent on the laser active medium, its internal dimensions, optical feedback design and the excitation system employed. The transverse cross sectional profile of a laser beam, which shows its power distribution, is called the transverse electromagnetic mode (TEM). The higher number TEMs have a greater spread in intensity which makes it harder to focus into a fine spot.
Tubes can suddenly fail for a number of reasons:
- It was a marginal tube to begin with.
- Running the tube at too high of a temperature (Typically 25C is max recommended).
- Running the tube at a too high of a current (18mA is typically the max with 15mA being the recommended max ).
Your video isn’t playing for me. If the file is too large you may need to upload it somewhere else, like youtube, and link to it.
Let me know if you have any questions.