what are others experiencing with upkeep and maintenance on thier
lasers.
Or Baasel/Rofin laser (6000 series) is now about 4 years old, I
think. It gets pretty much full time usage during the day, since
there are several of us using it, sometimes pretty much waiting for
the guy who’s using it now to finish, so the next guy gets a turn…
It doesn’t sit idle very much.
But it’s had it’s share of ongoing problems. We’ve gone through, I
think, four or five flash lamps, and two main computer board
changouts (which also requires changing the matched power supply
control board), and one new laser rod (when the seals between the rod
and the housing failed, causing it to leak cooling water. The
mirrors have been replaced once, and there is/has been a problem with
the left microscope eyepieces field of view, apparently related to
some misalignment of the shutter, which the service guy seems unable
to isolate and fix (very annoying). oh, and the right hand light
bulb socket has burned out. so we’re welding with just one light bulb
in there, till we figure out how to fix that. Also, twice we’ve had
to replace the optical proximity sensors that tell the laser your
hands are properly in the enclosure. The normal maintenance items of
filters, deionized water changes, air filter, etc have been done
according to schedule. I’ve lost count of the number of the little
glass round protective lenses we’ve gone through (they get spattered
by welding flash, etc)
That’s the one at work. I’ve also got an old Siro (same as BD)
ALS-35s in my home shop, manufactured in '97. It gets less use, so
hasn’t had the same frequency of breakdowns. But it’s hardly trouble
free either, mostly still trying to get things fully fixed from when
i bought it. It arrived from India, a trade in from a factory there
(so it had very heavy use before i got it), with the air cooling fan
(welding chamber exhaust) inoperative, and though i’ve replaced the
faulty fan motor, now something is blowing that fuse. The main
cooling fan for the heat exchanger is failing fast as well, and I’ve
had to change the flash lamp once so far (in two years, and that was
just recently.) one of these days, when I get the money, I’ll have to
replace the two gold plated resonator cavity halves as well, as the
gold plating is suffering from some corrosion that has about 20-25
percent of it looking frosted, instead of bright and shiney. That
may account in part for the somewhat less than fully uniform
intensity of the weld spot (which as small diameters tends to burn
through, instead of welding evenly, due to what appears like a hot
spot along one side of the weld spot. quite annoying, but then what
can I expect for a laser that cost me only a bit over half what they
cost new.
All in all, though I would consider myself pretty much addicted to
lasers, I’ll also readily concede that they are rather costly to
maintain. not like most jewelers tools that you might buy once or
twice in a career, or that in some cases, will end up getting passed
on to the next generation when one retires…
Peter Rowe