When you say there are no usable lasers for cutting, does that mean the big thunder is good for etching/rastering still?
well I’m gonna come out and say Epilog Fusion is weak AF.
unless I did it wrong, the meter had zero movement away from zero.
At 50% power, 50% speed in engrave mode it was able to cut a sheet of paper.
It was not able to cut thru a sheet of paper and one layer of painters tape.
Interesting meter. not what I expected. cheers!
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Exactly my reaction when I first saw it.
Did you ever find someone who knew? I saw a response you posted in another thread looking for instructions as well. I haven’t been able to find them either
No, I didn’t find anything on Zing. In fact, I tried to use it this morning.
I’m going to confound the Fusion troubleshooting.
Last week and again this morning I vector cut 1/8" plywood on Fusion; shortly before Nick did his tests.
I had no problems whatsoever. Nice clean crisp cuts.
At 100% power, it seemed to be running a little hot. I was able to cut at a higher speed than the downloaded material settings. 1/8" ply - recommended setting was 100%P, 10%S and I cut at 15%S with no problem.
I also did light (low power) vector marking on plywood with 20% power and 80% speed but I have no benchmark for whether that is reasonable.
Given that the recommended settings for 1/8" ply are only 10% speed at 100%P, one should infer that it isn’t going to cut anything much thicker than that (can’t go much slower than 10%).
I have not tried Fusion for rastering.
My workflow is to print directly from Adobe Illustrator to the Fusion. Usually I don’t use the job manager but this morning I was unable to get it to print directly to the Fusion without going through the job manager.
Interesting, I didn’t realize that is/was possible. I often had issues getting from AI - Job manager when I’ve used the fusion and needed to tweak something. Would be nice to be able to use AI files directly
Odd indeed. You’re correct that the fusion won’t cut much more than 1/8" plywood. We purchased it primarily for engraving so we bought a low wattage version.
The fact you could cut a bit faster than the default wouldn’t normally surprise me. Plywood has aot of variability and epilog probably tended toward reliability rather than speed in their default parameters.
It is of course surprising after the reports that the fusion is unusably underpowered. Perhaps the problem is some intermittent issue in the electronics or software and not in the tube or optics.
I don’t think this changes my stance though. We should contact a local tech to come out and take a look.
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IMO, it reinforces your stance. Since it’s usable under at least some undecipherable circumstances, it would be nice to have a professional do the troubleshooting.
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FWIW, it looks like Nick’s Fusion test was raster mode whereas I succeeded with vector mode. Might be a coincidence, might not be.
I was able to engrave and perform a power test on fusion this evening and it worked very well for me. Deep engraving on some scrap wood produced something like 1/32-1/16" deep engraving. The power test read 62W, which is great since the fusion has a 60W tube in it.
There are probably focus issues since the manual focus is bent and autofocus is missing parts. I recommend the thickness focus where you measure your material and enter the thickness in the same place where you set power and speed. If selected the laser will auto-adjust the table to the right height, based on an internal offset that’s occasionally calibrated.
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As you and I determined earlier, Fusion’s bed was far from level at that time so your method is the only reliable approach.
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Local Techs are almost impossible to find. I know one that has serviced my machine but he’s not even local, he’s from Houston.
that may be true of Chinese lasers but Epilog, Tortec, and Universal Laser service is available
in Arlington.
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Yes they are but they only service their brand, Epilog is the only one we have at the Makers Space. And I bet is going to be expensive unless the machine still under warranty or has extended service.
Does anyone know the current statuses or estimated repair dates on any of the lasers? I was hoping to cut some 1/8" acrylic before next weekend, and was unsure on whether I’ll be able to meet that deadline.
I’d also like to see if there is a contact I could get with to volunteer to help with troubleshooting or maintenance on the lasers. I know they are a lot of work to keep running, and a few volunteers willing to learn could only help.
I see some discussion about the fusion still being able to get some jobs done but when I went in last night around 8p there wasn’t any power to it. Is there specific times I’d need to go in to use it right now? Or did something need to be flipped on?
The Fusion does require extra training - I believe its operation [and power] are covered in the class.
Right, which we’ve taken but everything was completely shut down last night. So I was confused.
I am really needed to get get a few items engraved and cut but am not trained on the fusion laser which is the only one working at the moment. Would anyone be willing to help me out??