"CorSec Down for laser repair" Topic

So we are all but dead in the water right now. The high voltage power supply for the laser just blew up. I'm working on getting parts but we might be down for a while. If the parts don't fix it then I'll have to ship in another one. So potentially a week or more. We still have limited stock on the shelves but we can't make more for the foreseeable future.

Sounds like time to develop new lines and projects.

Even CorSec's problems sound SciFi-ish: "Our laser is down!"

I bet you're wishing you had built that time machine. You could have fixed this yesterday ;-)

How are the Replicator and Warp Core holding up?

Hope the spares fix it in the short term. I have had recent experience with massively complex and expensive hardware going on the fritz and understand your concern.

So I'm overnighting the parts I need to fix it. In theory this will work and I should be cutting tomorrow night. I'm going to work through my outstanding orders tonight and tomorrow morning to ship everything I can.

This is what happened.

That little capacitor blew up and pinged off the top of the power supply. I thought I cracked the tube or something. I would have tried to fix it with radio shack parts but it burned up a power resistor and it's a strange size so I spent all afternoon finding a replacement. Who uses 3.7 ohm resistors with a 5% tolerance? I finally settled on a 3.65 ohm with a 1% tolerance. That fits in the range of the other resistor. The real kicker is I knew a cap was about to go and even ordered the larger ones in the power supply but not that one. The other ones are in the mail now. $9 USD worth of parts and $32 USD for overnight shipping… I never thought I'd do that but hey emergencies require drastic measures.

The real question is… now what. 24 hours till I get my parts. 12 hours till I get my aluminum. 30 some outstanding orders. I'm going to catch up on email and then try and remember what I did when I had free time… Might have to find those 28mm germans I base coated a while back and work on them.

I feel your pain! My printer broke down and it took two weeks to get it fixed. Fortunately I had enough stock on hand to handle most orders, but Murphy's Law being in full effect I suddenly had a run on items that I rarely sell many of and thus don't keep a large stock. A few customers were inconvenienced. It happens, but if the vendor is open and honest with their customers (as you've been) most of them will give us a break.

Scott Washburn
PaperTerrain

Haha AB! I was pushing it harder and harder and watching it slowly fail. I normally run at 100% power and 5mm/s. I was down to 4mm/s to ensure a good cut when boom! Luckily it was a power converter and not the warp core :)

My warp core (IE laser tube at full power)

First of all, cool picture of your "warp core". Second of all, I am so upset and disappointed that my order (a custom job) might be delayed a few days that in protest I placed an order for more stuff. Take that, Jonathan, now you have more work to do after your day off!

Seriously, enjoy the day of painting. Your products are one of the most useful things to hit the market in at least the last 10 years. You took something every space gamer toyed with in his head and made it a reality. Great job.

I have your order sitting on my desk. Well all but the 40mm bases because the first try was warped for some weird reason. I had planned to cut the replacements 2 jobs down from the one that blew up the machine.

Just out of curiosity, what power tube is it? Our 60W usually hits 40mm/sec through bonded material like 2mm MDF, and 30mm/sec through the 3mm MDF. Our previous 40W tube was closer to 20mm/sec when it was behaving. 4 or 5mm/sec seems very slow?

It's a 40 watt tube. We have never been able to go that fast. Of course I'm use to cutting acrylic so I might be able to run MDF faster then I do now but I don't think I'd get to those speeds for 3mm.

I really wish we could get 2mm over here. It's rather annoying and we even had a problem getting our last shipment of 3mm.

This machine has also been a big problem for a long time with weird focus problems and then an odd tube issue and now a power supply problem. The tube was replaced under warranty but the power supply and air compressor were replaced on my dime.

They're certainly temperamental pieces of kit! We've had a couple of tube issues, a broken bed adjuster switch, and then the usual lens/focus stuff.

Our previous machine was a desktop 40W machine, and that would often end up down at 12-15mm/sec when it was feeling iffy, but the bigger machine we've got now is a lot more reliable.

On the MDF, I've spoken to people on the continent who struggle to get 2mm as well, and that's only over in Belgium and the Netherlands! I'm sure our supplier buys in from Spain, so it's odd how some places can get it and some can't. The chap I spoke to in Belgium had switched to 3mm birch instead, which he could cut at 80mm/sec!

Is that an 80mm line in a second?
so a sheet of A4 would be about 4 seconds?

Yep, that's pretty quick for cutting but you can find the laser head gets knocked out of line when it turns corners or changes direction at speed.

Well new caps and a new power resistor are in place. Time to crawl back into the machine and hook this baby back up. Hopefully this fixes it and I can get on to making stuff. If not then it's back to the drawing board.

Next machine I buy will be an 80 Watt Trotec Speedy 300. No more chinese garbage for me.

Well that didn't work. Man I'd kill for some lab equipment and a schematic…

What you need is a couple of Chinese nine year olds. They put these things together in the first place – let them fix it! I bet it would be cheap, too. I think you can get one shipped in overnight for about $100. USD

What I need is someone willing to start thier own laser cutting business within driving distance of Pensacola who has $400 USD and is willing to take over my $178 USD a month payments for the next 3.5 years :)

Some of the Chinese ones are fine, but the standard varies massively depending which factory makes them, as they're all basically putting laser machine kits together with parts from all over.

The UK distributor we got ours from has to travel over there regularly and make sure they're keeping on top of the quality control.

Well I found what looks like a descent power supply from an alternative supplier. It's coming in tomorrow. Now all I have to do is figure out how to not blow my arm off while I check the return line from the tube for the amp rating to adjust the controller to provide the proper amps. In theory the high voltage is dissipated by the time it gets to the return line. All I have is a small crappy meter and it's only rated to 500 volts. Somedays I miss having high voltage gloves and proper test equipment that came with working for an establish radio network.

@leon I suspect that if your cutting that much faster then me then maybe mine was set a bit too low on current. 25mA seems to be the sweet spot. I'll have to do some testing and see if I can't turn it up a notch. The new power supply is also rated for 20-60 Watts so I can upgrade the tube without needing a new one.

Remember to regulate the plasma flow through the EPS conduit otherwise the manifold might overload and you'll get warp core all over your trousers.

Or something.

In any case, don't let Geordie anywahere near it, everything he touches explodes. Someone really should QC his work.

I don't want any of that glowey stuff on my trousers… Mostly because it's highly focused light and tends to hurt a lot when in contact with skin. Let alone flammable material. I have been nicked by the unfocused beam a few times. Mostly because the test button is on one side and the mirror adjustments are on the other. So I have to lean over the machine to focus the lenses. I need a flunky.