New Member

[chuckphd53]

Name Chuck:

Just started in lasers a couple months back, bought a Monport 130w for our business and so far
am pretty amazed at the capabilities.
Being an Electrical Engineer, my first actions were to go over the Laser design in depth, was happy to so so many quality parts used.
Of course my first actions was to relpace all the mirrors and upgrade to APC lens for the new laser....
Added a current meter and Air assist with manual control.
I have specific projects that will get the lasers attention but it is initially going through testing and capabilities right now with different materials.
Looking forward to more of this forum and the folks here.
Chuck

[Gareth Lewis]

Hi Chuck,

Welcome to the forum, we finally got you registered.

Don't forget to backup your laser settings, you will probably need them some time in the future.

What mirrors did you use as replacements?

[chuckphd53]

I bought a set of mirrors from APC along with the Set of Lens to fit the 16.15 holder on the Monport.... came with 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 4.0
I am having Lou At APC make me up a 3.0 , as I found this works best for all the acrylic I need to cut....

Design enginner by trade, so I have made changes to,the Monport platform and additons.
And spent extra time with beam alignment and table level and X/Y/Z aalignment.

[Gareth Lewis]

Hi Chuck,

Personally I would use standard molybdenum mirrors as they are virtually bombproof and should last the life of the machine.

[chuckphd53]

Thanks Gareth..

Will need to look into molybdenum mirrors.
Why are they bombproof ? guessing the coating ??

Chuck

[Gareth Lewis]

Hi Chuck,

The "gold" coated mirrors are usually a form of silicone glass that is very flat and which is then coated with a few microns of "gold" or some other metal. These coating are not very strong and can be damaged by leaving a finger print on them. You can only clean them with IPA and need to be very careful with them.

Molybdenum mirrors are solid metal and can be cleaned with acetone and IPA. Even if you scratch them, you can use silver polish to recover the surface.

Reflection performance is on a par with other mirror types.