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Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: June 01, 2014, 02:49:50 PM »
Hi Art,
Wow, that motion is fantastic – I’d love to have that on my CNC (perhaps one day).
My view is that the motion would not cause any damage to a glass CO2 tube (the water coolant mass is really not that great) but…
There are serious problems with mounting single CO2 laser tubes (metal or glass) vertically – basically there is debris produced as a result of the RF or plasma arcs, this debris settles (under gravity) onto the ‘output coupler’ which burns in and results in early failure of this component. For example, Synrad withdraw their warranty on tubes mounted beyond a specified degrees from the horizontal. Having said that, the ‘double’ glass tubes which only have 100% reflecting mirrors at the lower end (outside the plasma envelope) are often mounted vertically in medical equipment. Obviously their tubes are changed very frequently but I think it indicates that there are ways around the problem.
I think you would have to go a long way to better the performance of the Mach3 Impact / Laser Engraving plugin (which you wrote way back when) but I look forward to hearing more of your progress.
Keep up the good work my friend.
Tweakie.
Wow, that motion is fantastic – I’d love to have that on my CNC (perhaps one day).
My view is that the motion would not cause any damage to a glass CO2 tube (the water coolant mass is really not that great) but…
There are serious problems with mounting single CO2 laser tubes (metal or glass) vertically – basically there is debris produced as a result of the RF or plasma arcs, this debris settles (under gravity) onto the ‘output coupler’ which burns in and results in early failure of this component. For example, Synrad withdraw their warranty on tubes mounted beyond a specified degrees from the horizontal. Having said that, the ‘double’ glass tubes which only have 100% reflecting mirrors at the lower end (outside the plasma envelope) are often mounted vertically in medical equipment. Obviously their tubes are changed very frequently but I think it indicates that there are ways around the problem.
I think you would have to go a long way to better the performance of the Mach3 Impact / Laser Engraving plugin (which you wrote way back when) but I look forward to hearing more of your progress.
Keep up the good work my friend.
Tweakie.
