There can be numerous factors that come into play with material not cutting material either in spots or altogether, below is a list of possible issues for this.
Proper Power/Speed Settings
All materials react to the laser differently, even with different type of woods (soft vs dense) and in some cases even the same type depending how it was made (such as glues, holes, etc) It would be important to run various engraving/vector cutting tests on a spare piece of material that you will use for your final product to get the closest match for power and speed to cut it well.
We recommend running a 0.5 x 0.5 inch square for a vector cut and taking that same square and Selecting a "Fill" and to Rasterize it to then engrave various power settings to see a good depth and look you wish to have and once you narrow down good settings for both you may use it on your main product.
Dirty Mirrors, Optics and/or Laser Aperture
It Is important to keep your Mirrors, Beam Combiner, Focus Lens and Laser Aperture clean and free of any debris or smudges. Any one of these dirty even slightly will cause the laser energy to be cut substantially as it travels to each mirror and to your material.
Each can be cleaned with a wet lens wipe as you would use for glasses, anything else can cause scratches and damage the mirrors.
For the laser aperture, it's more rare for this to get dirty but as particles and smoke generates from cutting material it can at times get on the inside lens of the laser tube. The best practices is to take something soft or perhaps a Q-Tip and be sure to wrap a lens wipe around the end and carefully insert it into the front of the laser tube and move in circle motions to clean the Laser Aperture.
Mirror Alignment is Off
It's possible your alignment may have adjusted slightly over time or if adjustments were made that had shifted the trajectory the laser beam travels.
A great way to check for alignment would to place a piece of thermal paper directly under the air cone (sticky side up) and do one test fire, you should have a solid circle pin-hole through your paper. If this is what you get the alignment is correct and if it isn't then you likely will be clipping the inside of your air cone with the laser energy which will scatter.
Mirror Alignment Test w/ Links to guides
Water Temperature
Ideal water temperature would be about 19c-22c (66.2f-73.5f) which our CW5000 unit keeps the water at as it is refrigerated, our CW3000 units that come stock with Pro machines or Coolbox for our Muse hobby line are just passive cooling with a heatsink and fan and in most conditions work just fine but if your environment while running the machines raises the temperature past the limit of say 27c-(80f) then this can degrade the laser energy until the tube cools down.
It is possible to add some distilled ice cubes within your water chiller periodically to maintain a proper range of water temperature to ensure the laser energy is stable and strong.
Laser Tube losing energy over time
If you been using your normal settings for engraving/cutting your material and it is stating to get diminishing results it's possible your tube is losing energy and it may need to be replaced if the above possibilities have been ruled out.
Laser Tubes are a consumable item and does deplete over time and not covered under the warranty policy, you may visit www.fslaser.com to purchase a new laser tube.
Still having Issues?
Please create a Support Ticket by using the button below or sending an e-mail to support@fslaser.com stating you've done all previous troubleshooting steps and run the next troubleshooting steps and include them.
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Run a vector job at 100% power and 1% speed with NO MATERIAL in your work bed and take a photo of your Touchscreen if this is a Hobby machine or mA meter on your Pro machine along with a photo of your laser tube beam.
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Take a photo on Mirror 1 and Mirror 3 (laser head in the bottom-right section) with thermal paper along with placing a piece of Thermal Paper right under the air cone to confirm you are getting a pin-hole through the paper.
- When submitting via an e-mail you may attach any pictures, videos and project files needed for support to see.
- When submitting a ticket using the button below please either respond to the automated generated email stating we have received the ticket with your pictures, videos and project files or upload these to a Google Drive or Dropbox folder and include this link within the support ticket "Your Issue" dialog upon creation.
