I don’t know if this has been addressed yet, but the FusionPro is running a little bit weak compared to where it’s been for the last several months. Jobs are taking way more power than they used to for worse results, and plywood in general isn’t getting anywhere near the kind of char that it used to in order to create contrast on its etches. Used to be that plywood would etch and char beautifully at 30% power 100% speed, now it’s taking close to 90% power to get a comperable depth, and or at least 2 passes at the old settings to get anything resembling char at all.
The optics are fine, last I checked, which was right before the chair election. Anyone have any ideas as to what might be going on and what can be done to fix it? It feels like it’s too early for the tube to be going out, but I don’t have a clue what the issue could be otherwise.
It’s unlikely a tube issue this early since it’s RF instead of HV. We have or at least used to have a CO2 power meter that could be used to check the beam power from the tube onwards at each step.
Certainly worth doing a power test. I believe there’s a maintenance day coming up where we can open the covers and check for dust/debris on the optics below the table, we should do this in a less dusty environment than the general workshop.
The laser is still under warranty (2 years, iirc from delivery) with Epilog so let’s do what we can but stop before any possible warranty voiding actions.
We don’t have any power tests from when the unit was new, but at the moment it’s around 60W. I had to hand time it but it was within 2W over a couple of tests.
I would hazard it’s more likely focus or alignment related. I know the auto focus needed to be calibrated at one time. Not sure if we did that or not. But I don’t know enough about this unit to really say for sure
My experience has been that a new tube usually runs a bit stronger than advertised (my 50w tested at around 60w). it ususally settles down to it’s actual rating after some use. cheers!
I checked it when I went to clean the optics. It looked fine, but I’m not confident in my ability to properly diagonose any potential issues, so someone might also want to come behind me and check it again.
