laser fire, worth salvaging?

[Jason Wright]

left my laser for 10 minutes, we had a power cut in the house (laser in the garage) wife reset the board and my thought nothing of it, decided after just a minute to go and reset the job it was doing only to walk into the laser on fire and 2 - 3 foot flames licking off it, another minute and the flamable material next to it would of gone up and id not of put it out with my fire extinguisher - there is also a welding gas bottle just 3 feet from it.... very lucky escape.

So my question, is this salvagable or is it strip the still working parts off or just a case of chcuking it away and starting again

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[Pete Cyr]

I would clean it up and fix any burned wires and see if it works.
It does not appear to have damaged the panel controls - if the controller and power supplies are un affected it would be worth a bit of time to try to restore it.

[Jason Wright]

thank you for the reply, the control panel is fire damaged underneath,

i dont however have the time to go through all that to see if it will work only then to shell out for another, once i dragged it out of the workshop i removed all the motor drivers, power supply, main board and laser power supply (essentially all electronic boxes inside the side compartment)

its literally just been driven away for scrap on the back on a mates truck.

so im on the lookout for another eithr 60/80w 700x500 machine that uses rdworks as all my files are for that platform

[Dave Vigness]

Russ had a similar fire, but maybe not quite as extensive. The episode is called Chinese Pizza Oven I believe.

Almost sounds like a time for a build from scratch if you have the time / space. I wish I had, I'd build something with a LOT more bed space, maybe go for broke and build one big enough to mount the tube on the gantry and take a full width sheet of material. Probably not a vertical like the Build You CNC version, but something along that line.

[Jason Wright]

thanks but ive not the time or skill to build one nor would i want to, i dont need one bigger than what i had, just a replacement at 80w or 60w would suffice

[Gene Uselman]

Jason- gotta believe you came to the correct decision, unless you are in very tight financial circumstances. In a previous life restoring old Corvettes, I was a partner in a bodyshop and the only one who would not faint at the sight of wiring, and fire damage to the engine and dash panel was common. It is nasty work and replacing anything that had more than a smudge of smoke on it was the only way to economically repair them. The insurance companies did not want any part of it either, too many problems down the road if it was not done to perfection.

[Jason Wright]

Jason- gotta believe you came to the correct decision, unless you are in very tight financial circumstances. In a previous life restoring old Corvettes, I was a partner in a bodyshop and the only one who would not faint at the sight of wiring, and fire damage to the engine and dash panel was common. It is nasty work and replacing anything that had more than a smudge of smoke on it was the only way to economically repair them. The insurance companies did not want any part of it either, too many problems down the road if it was not done to perfection.

too late to even consider repairing now anyway, its already gone, plus its the time i dont have to mess around, not massively tight on finances but could obviously do without spending another £2500+ when it was a perfectly running machine, i hear horror stories of the chinese machines breaking down, tubes and power supplies going wrong, i had not one issue in 6 years, maybe the tube was about to go, we'll never know now.