Optimum water temperature?

[bobg]

Hi

Assuming it's the same chiller as mine (from HPC and badged YONGXING on the front) there are a couple of things I've found...

1: The chiller doesn't hold much water so ensure you've filled it as high as possible (nearly to the lip of the internal container), and
2: The water evaporates quite quickly, so check it regularly to ensure it's still full.

Mine's only a 40watt tube but even in a warm room at 70% or 80% the temperature stays within 3 or 4 degrees of the setting.

Bob

[Spooky]

Hiya,

What power tube do you have and which model Chiller (there are two different ones, a 3000 and a 5000) both hold 6 litres of water that will heat up quite quick but will also cool down quite quickly as well.

best wishes

Dave

[Matrix]

Hi there,
The chiller is the one called 'CHILLER' currently on HPC website - and it has absolutely no ID markings on the panels at all! I'll get in touch with Chris at HPC and see if we can't get a bit more detail.

@bobg - thanks for the advice, we've now topped everything up to brimming, and added 'check water' to our maintenance schedule.
Your numbers are also reassuring. We are running our poor baby (6090PRO, 60W tube) at max.power, for around 6 hours a day at the moment, so judging from your experience, the cooler is having a lot of work to do. When I have time, I will be experimenting with some of the other excellent advice on the forum, and see if we can't get good (and speedy) results with lower power settings (I'm an old punk rocker, so 'turn it up to 11' is my default setting for everything!).

Better still, we had our first full day running the cooler yesterday, and Justin (who does most of the machine op) has reported that cut quality was still excellent at the end of the day - a massive improvement.

Many Thanks,
Steve.

[Spooky]

Hiya Steve,

It gets a tiny bit more complicated with a laser cutter, as my late father used to say "Cheap, Fast Accurate - pick any two" and it applies to lasers as well.

Running the machine at 100% power isn't usually a good idea in most cases as the power supplied by the Chinese PSU isn't that stable and can spike above the input required by the tube. Too much of that at best will generate extra heat and at worst shorten the life of your tube. That said of all the machines available in the UK HPC are likely the only company that actually test and quality control their products so at least with one of their machines you stand the best chance of getting a well made item. (given that these machines are cheap Chinese made lasers and not Japanese metal cutters).

Sometimes I have also found that "less is more", when the machine cuts it generates carbon (if you are cutting wood) or plastic vapor (if cutting acrylic etc) and all that detritus has to be kept out of the cut line so pumping the max power into the job *can* result in less efficiency if the cut isn't being kept clean by the air assist.
As a general rule the lower you can keep the temperature (within limits) the better the cut quality BUT you must also take into account dew points as Phil and Tweaks mentioned above. Also keeping the temp at a steady say 16 -18 degrees will give better results than say a range of 16 - 26 through the day.

Above all the single MOST important part of running a laser is maintenence....it's the key word to reliability and product quality.

Mirrors should be kept clean as well as lens's and in a production environment check the belts once a week for both dirt on them and any signs of stretching or damage. (the belts last years but check them anyways) Always remember to clean the upper side of the lens as well as the lower, dust and vapor can get deposited onto the top of the lens via the beam entry hole and often gets over looked when cleaning. Mucky mirrors and/or lens's can go bang in as little as a month. For me 8 hours a day production should mean cleaning mirrors every three days and the final lens at least once a week with a daily check for dirt at the end of each production day.

best wishes

Dave

[Matrix]

Thanks Dave,
The advice is really appreciated - wish we'd come here earlier, rather than trying to muddle through!

That goes especially for the cleaning - we really were rather slack when we first got the machine; it's quite incredible how little gunk it can take to lower the efficiency, and it's one of those 'incremental' things that is so tempting to dismiss when times are busy (easy to blame a poor cut on the material rather than the machine or operator (i.e. me!)).
Should have listened to my gran, "little and often" as she used to tell me! Learned than one the hard way when we had a biggie flame-out from gunk on the bed (Top Tip - make sure your fire extinguisher is CO2, NOT Powder!! - boy was that a mess to clean up).

Steve.

[Daven]

Not sure how the HPC chiller is set up but I have mine (an aquariam chiller) running on it's own pump to a 25ltr reservoir. It may help as it's keeping a larger amount of water cool.

Cheers

Dave

[bobg]

Just another little item which may be of use..... I have my chiller AND laser AND additional in-line extractor fan running from the same (non-switchable) four-way extension socket. That way I can't EVER switch on the laser and forget to switch on the chiller (and therefore the pump and cooling water). Mine's a 3020 and the original water pump plugs into the back of the machine so switched on with it, but the chiller has it's own power plug so doesn't.

Bob

[tweakie]

Just another little item which may be of use..... I have my chiller AND laser AND additional in-line extractor fan running from the same (non-switchable) four-way extension socket. That way I can't EVER switch on the laser and forget to switch on the chiller (and therefore the pump and cooling water). Mine's a 3020 and the original water pump plugs into the back of the machine so switched on with it, but the chiller has it's own power plug so doesn't.

Bob

A good tip Bob.

Tweakie.