Hi folks (from Kansas City)

[Vinito Frankovich]

I just picked up one of the 80W import ebay lasers this past week (700 x 500). I bought it somewhat "stripped down" to minimize expense since I figure I'll be upgrading things as I go, other than opting for a Ruida controller. Since I'm new to this, I figure this is mostly a learning experience so far, so spending money upfront might not make sense, i.e. wait until I know what I want before I go blowing money on stuff. But though I'm not positive, it's possible that the thing came with a better-than-average tube too. I'll post some specs and a photo on it later and maybe somebody can set me straight on that.

Before I even tried it, I installed a 0-30mA meter and one of those turbo-type 6" inline fans for better fume extraction. The extractor tube is now installed and I played with it a little yesterday. It seems to work fine, so good news there. Also backed up my vendor settings too, for good measure.

I occurred to me in the middle of working with the vent tube that I could use the laser itself to cut a panel to replace a basement window to vent it outside, so that's what I did. For a new guy like me, it seemed so cool to make something functional and handy right out of the gate.

I do have a question on the ballpark recommended max running mA to which I should limit the tube for longevity. I suppose I should maybe nail down exactly what my tube is so that can be more accurately determined. I'll post something about that soon.

Great to make it in here. I'm looking forward to participating & learning about this stuff.

[Pete Cyr]

Welcome Vinito. Recommend backing up your vendor settings.

61UQwG8HqJL._AC_SL1000_.jpg

[Vinito Frankovich]

Welcome Vinito. Recommend backing up your vendor settings.

Thanks, and yep, backed up yesterday.
Looks like my foggy memory was about aligned apparently. I had a vague idea from distant past reading that a little over 20mA was about right for running current on 80W tube.

I'd like to look into my power supply and see if I can set it to limit the current so I don't have to worry about the programming not having errors. Even when you're paying attention, it's something that could slip a guy's mind. Also, not sure if there would be some other factor that can be a problem, but it seems like if your range from 0% to 100% in the program equates to 0mA to 23mA on the machine, things would just be simpler and make more sense. Since there's absolutely no reason to overdrive the tube ever, then it would be cumbersome to have to constantly make sure you aren't programming a percent that exceeds the safe range. I'm guessing that's what you guys just do, but the videos I watch seem to always limit to 80% or whatever rather than just set up the machine to not tear itself up in the first place.

Thanks again.

[Pete Cyr]

I'd like to look into my power supply and see if I can set it to limit the current

A better way would be to to experiment and determine what % of pwr equals the max power for your tube and set max in your vendor settings

max pwr.png

[Vinito Frankovich]

I ran across that and figured that setting would cap the power for safety reasons, but wouldn't you have more granular control on power if a guy could actually utilize all 100 points of the percentage scale? Seems like if you set that max power at, say, 60% or whatever, you could program it for anything over 60% but just keep bumping your head on that ceiling. Meaning you are telling it one thing but the control is just quietly keeping you from killing your tube and chucking all points above 60% into the ether.

Maybe it instead expands the scale? It seems like it would be more intuitive to be able to command anything between 1 and 100% so the tube power actually corresponds to an evenly scaled range within its capability. Honestly, it seems rather sketchy (beyond a malevolent Big Tube Cartel sales strategy) to ever have a machine set up so it can suicide its own self in the first place. But I digress.

[Pete Cyr]

% pwr and mAmps havea correlation. Unltil you do some testing you won't know what the correlation on your system may be for the pwr output for any given % pwr programed.

In my system you can see where at 90% programed power the actual output drops.....there is no point in ever operating at greater that 90% on my system since the out put actuall decreases above 90% programed power.

But you can alsee the correlation to mAmps for a given programed power - - knowing this info will allow you to set a limit in the vendor setting to prevent early burn out of your tube

In my graph the left Y axis scale were values measure with a power meter measuring the IR energy at the laser head.
The X Axis was the value programed in the layer within RDWORKS

SO for the 89.5 value ....90% was the programed power in RDWORKS and 89.5 was the measures power at the laser head and 22mAmps was the value indicated on laser milliamp meter.

Cyr-Boss 1630-Power Chart Dec 2017.pdf