Perhaps I just have unrealistic expectations but currently Thunder is not cutting 1/8" baltic birch at 20 mm/s at full power. It seems it should. Is there a gold standard “ok if it’s not cutting X at Y power and Z speed then clearly it’s broken.”? Cause I feel we’re there, but don’t really know.
I cut a lot of 1/8 Baltic birch. My setting for power is 70%. Speed may vary from 35 mm/ sec down to 20. This is the case for all 3 Thunders.
Will it cut in 2 passes? It shouldn’t require that, but wondering how bad it is performing
I was doing 100% (so effectively 70) at 15 mm/s and it was requiring two passes. At 10 I could get it in one. Also at ten it becomes very apparent that it’s creating a shadow line so I guess the lens is cracked (again…seems to be happening quite a bit lately).
On Donner I was able to cut it at 45 mm/s at 100/70 a few days ago but then Donner went down.
Anyhow I put a ‘out of service’ card on the Thunder until it’s fixed. It doesn’t even engrave well at this point.
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When I last used the Thunders for baltic birch and ran into issues like this, I considered that I might develop a small test file to cut a series of small squares with one at the recommended speed and four or five others at slower and more powerful settings to define my baseline for the day.
Probably could map the power output over time at each maintenance day. So you can see the output power degradation over time. We do have a thermal power probe, correct?
We do and the several time we did and.took readings there was little to no change.
We are trying to get lenses cleaned on a regular basis to help get more consistent results.
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Thanks @JoshW! I’m sure there are more issues with getting knocked out of alignment and dirty mirrors/lenses than a tube aging too fast or pushed too hard.