LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

I recently installed an ammeter to check how my water temp was effecting the efficiency of my laser, and I noticed that it's only pushing around 15-17 mA at like 75% (I've seen that 50W tubes should be sitting around 20-25 if I'm not mistaken?). I can't find any documentation for my tube specifically (and yes, I know it's kind of a garbage tube, I plan to get a new one), but does this seem right? Here's my tube, it has all the relevant info I can find

Oh wow, that's a handy chart! Seems I'm between the top 2/3? So my mA is roughly correct. Is that brand known for being not so good? And also, are those sold through KH as like a secondary?

I cant speak to the brand being good or bad but the amps are fairly consistant across all manuafactures - I simply grabbed a chart to show you you are in the ball park for pwr. You will have to do a bit more testing to determine if there are any problems with your machine.(specifically you would have to measure the actual pwr and compare that to the indicated mA value)

The next question is have you done an actual power test to see where you hit your rated power. I have an 80W, with a max working of 24 mA, but I actually hit my 80W at about 22.5 mA. Unless I have a problem with a particular material, I keep my max at 22.5 mA. Bumping to the full 24 mA only gains me about a watt and a half, so I don't push the max unless I really have to or am doing my twice annual power testing.