LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

I have a ruida RDC6442g based laser cutter, and just a while ago I found that I can't make the control board fire the laser.

Checked water pump safety, not that. Checked by bypassing.
Test fired the laser directly from the PSU directly, all good. PSU and Tube are fine.
Fired the laser by connecting "TL" on the PSU to ground. PSU is fine on that end too.
Checked continuity between all the wires, all checked out.
Measured signal from the Ruida controller and it seems ok too.


Additional info:
Water protection is managed by the Ruida controller, not directly by the PSU. (bypassed this in software too)
I bypass the water pump protection by having the WP port connected to G on the PSU.

This is the info i'm using to wire my PSU. (Did it before and worked fine)
http://www.laserpsu.com/laser-power-supply-p-776.html

I rebuilt this machine not too long ago, and had it all working just fine.
I recently redid the wiring to tidy it up, tested it after rewiring it, it worked, now i came back to use it and its not firing...
I'm just looking for suggestions as to what might make it not fire, because I'm running out of ideas.

Anybody have a sure way to test the signal coming out of the Ruida controller? I just measured the voltage with my multimeter, saw it drop when i pressed "pulse" so it seemed fine. My idea right now is that because the laser does fire when TL is shorted to G, but not from the Ruida signal, it could be that the signal is not "low enough", but i dont see how that could have changed from before...

any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

You indicate you can fire the laser "the laser does fire when TL is shorted to G"
Does it burn a good spot?

IF everything was working after you tidied up wiring and you can fire the laser by shorting TL then there is probably an interlock that that is not made - do you have door switches - are you sure the water interlock is defeated?

The only other idea I have is one of the controller grounds was good enough when you finished wiring but with use it has developed a high resistance ground - break and make the ground connections (inspect for arching)

Since you can make it work it must be something simple - you may have to go back through all the connections

Uff.

After a stressful review, i realized that my mistake was somewhere in the water pump alarm wiring...
I have not nailed down what is wrong, because it sent the right signal to the right place, but as soon as i completely removed the pump alarm from the equation it all went back to normal.

Panic was setting in thinking i had broken something expensive.

Thanks for the advice!

Its always is something simple... if it was working before.

I know how it feels all too well. Sounds like you have narrowed down the issue

Mine is RDV6442s-b(ec) but I guess I am trying to do the same.
My issue is that I have two tubes. The 130W one has a good CW5200 chiller, while the 40W has a CW3000. It worked fine until summer came to Spain and now CW3000 y over 25 and I am scared.
So I just connected both tubes to the CW5200 and for the time been it seems to work. I checked bubbles and had to work it around a bit.
My problem is now that the CW3000 must be on in order to fire the 40W tube. I guess it is the same thing with the water proteccion wiring that was explained in the post, but still not sure if the solution is to short WP to G. Or you meant TL to G?
Well, I will keep searching and reading till I am confident I won´t screw it up