Abusing an HPC 1290 Pro

[Spooky]

HPC 1290 Torture

2 years of ownership followed by being moved on a lift bed car transporter then left out in the elements for SEVEN weeks,stripped down into it's two main sub-assemblies and moved on a B&Q trolley !!!!

No covering, no special treatment.

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As some people that know me personally will be aware I have moved house recently to Salisbury.

This gave me a bit of a problem when it came to moving my HPC 1290 Pro machine. Now the 1290 is a pretty big bit of kit and while not particularly heavy it is very bulky to shuffle around.

The first problem was how to actually get the thing 18 miles down the road as it isn't going to be fitting in a car any time soon . I looked at hiring either a 3.5 or 7.5 Tonne vehicle from a local firm but soon found that many hire vehicles have their tail lifts cut short to prevent people overloading them. While the lift could easily manage the 350KG weight the size of the lift meant that it would not take the wheelbase of the 1290

After looking at a long wheelbase transit and a few other vehicles it became obvious that man handling the thing into the back of one of those wasn't going to be practical so a look through my phone book soon gave me the number of a friend who owns a car recovery truck. Not just any truck but one with a hydraulic bed that travels backwards then lowers to ground level.

Great so getting the laser on to that was no real problem, the wheels on the 1290 are good quality sensible diameter rubber ones so they could cope with the small 20mm lip on the sled. Between Bill and I we soon had the thing on the truck and were on our way!(in a nice convenient rainstorm and guess who had no cover)

Arriving at the new house it was pretty simple just to roll the machine on to the driveway, DAM, the passageway at the side of the house while nice and secure isn't very wide, we have the side wall of the house one side and an 8 foot high concrete block wall the other, add in a nice security gate and the passable width was only 970mm, DAM DAM the 1290 when tipped on to it's back is just over 1000mm in width even with the wheels removed!!

Looks like it would have to come to pieces.....while considering that I also remembered that I was going to store the machine in a big conservatory while I built my new workshop and that also had a small door opening so the laser wasn't going in there any time soon either! A few minutes thought and I came to the conclusion that this was going to be a royal pain in the butt and decided to keep the machine on the driveway while I finished construction of the log cabin it was going to live in. A quick trip to B&Q and I had a nice £10 tarp (yup real shoddy thing) to throw over the machine while I got the workshop done. I did bring the tarp home on a B&Q flatbed trolley (more on why later) and threw it over the top of the laser. No tie downs or anything like that just a few handy rocks to keep it down.

Due to other pressures and a workload I don't even want to consider, I had decided I wasn't going to spend a while lot of time worrying about the machine as if it got messed up it would give me a good reason to buy another one (bigger) as the 1290 had paid for itself several times over by now. So literally left it on the driveway covered in a flimsy plastic sheet / tarp.

Now things seemed to be on the right track and I thought the machine would only be out there maybe a few days to a week at worst, WRONG!

The builder who was supposed to be doing the base decided he was "ill" and backed out of doing the base for the cabins, a quick look round soon advised me that I wasn't going to get a builder in before Christmas so being a reasonably confident sort I decided to do all the building work myself! (keep in mind I'm an Architectural Draughtsman and Physicist by qualification and NOT a builder) but hey you know how it is, us guys like to think something often looks easier than it really is.......

So at this point I have a huge pile of dirt in the end of the garden to move(circa 30 tonnes), an £8000 laser sat on the driveway and a path 6 inches too narrow to move it down, two huge log cabins (well piles of wood in the garden) no power to the site I'm going to be working in (I'm no electrician either), alternating -6 to +10 degree temperatures with occasional downpours of rain thrown in and a new house to get organised as well as a family and customers to think about.

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On we go then, suffice to say the 7 weeks the machine ended up staying outside for weren't the best weather we could have had with sun , rain, freezing temperatures to mention just a bit of it. (remember my 10 quid tarp)

I managed to strip the machine into two sections to give myself enough room to move it and that's where the B&Q trolley came in.

Using two 75 x 50mm pieces of wood (3m in length) two of us levered the thing over it's balance point so that it tipped onto the trolley (keep in mind the tube was still in it) on it's rear face. From there it was pretty easy to just remove the Chinese chocolate screws that held the machine together and the base was set to be pulled away BUT at this point Chris (who knew I was moving) called to remind me that the wires would need to be removed from the PSU and the Z axis motor.

Now if you come to move a 1290 under no circumstances should you remove the gears driving the Z axis, if they are not refitted carefully you can and will throw the table out of level leading to either a call out from HPC or a LOT of mucking about to get it right again. So I simply cut the wires (they are colour coded) to allow the entire base to be slid off.

A few hours of jigging around and lots of swearing and between two of us we had the two pieces at the back of the house.

The wires were routed ready and the base was bolted back on (with A2 grade quality stainless steel cap screws I may add)

The machine was then tipped back onto it's wheels in the front of it's new building and wheeled in. A few minutes re-connecting the wires (I took a picture of all the connections before removing them) and the machine was ready to be set up again

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So far people will have seen that this machine took a LOT of crap!! it's been abused, left outside in variable temperatures and rain as well as being roughly man handled by two of us moving it.

So how much damage did all this actually do?

Currently it's sat next to me as I type cutting out an Amityville House in 3mm MDF at the SAME speed it did before I moved with the exact SAME level of quality.

There is no noticeable corrosion or damage to either the slides or any of the moving parts, the paintwork is untouched!

The mirrors are not in any way corroded and the lens in both the tube and final laser head are both fine.

If you are in the market for a laser cutter then you really need look no further than the HPC range of machines, they are distributed and supported here IN the UK and are available from stock.

I really can't speak highly enough for this bit of kit, I very much doubt there are many lasers UK made or Chinese that would withstand this kind of abuse and still power up let alone work as well as this one has.

http://hpclaser.co.uk/ for further details!!

cheers

Dave

[Spooky]

Oh as a quick additional bit of info, I don't work for HPC and although Chris is a good friend of mine I also don't compliment stuff that is trash.

In the 6 years I've been working with lasers this has impressed me more than any other piece of equipment I have owned.

best wishes

Dave

[Spooky]

Two more months go by and still cutting at the same speed and feed rates.
Daily use age of 12 to 18 hours on a tube that is now 2 years old.

cheers

Dave

[avalonman]

I had a similar experience only with a new 6840 where we had it split in 3 pieces on its side and pushed around corners to install it.

IT still give excellent results and it is a solid built piece of kit, but unlike you I've worn out 3 tubes. mind you its turned out thousands of engraved and cut items.

[Spooky]

I'm astounded by it, in the past I have worked with various CNC machines and even setting one down slightly off of level can wreck it!

I'm not easily impressed by many things these days and take most things at face value but the absolute beating this machine took astounds me.

Over the last few weeks it's been running almost 18 hour days with one sheet coming out and another going in (it's 2:18 am now and it's still running as I type) looking at workload I think I'll go for a couple of the new 1690's Chris does pretty soon with probably EFR tubes. I still have to find time to speak to Chris about getting a 120 watt EFR to try out (any my 80 watt has 4,000 hours on it now and is two years old) so may be a good time to upgrade me thinks

best wishes

Dave

[StarLoc Adhesives]

The HPC lasers are good machines, my 3040 traveled round in the car twice in the UK and now in December it drove to Bulgaria on the roof rack on my Calibra Turbo.....3 days drive to Bulgaria , on the roof as the rotorvator was in the boot and the car was full of all the usual bits like clothes and emergency food.... easier to fit laser on the roof than the food....

Bouncing over the very bumpy roads, and got to Bulgaria with the vibration and bumps driving something like 2000 miles from Liverpool to StaraZagora , i left it overnight to defrost and it worked without any problems,
They have been running it every day about 8 hours each day since the start of January , still cutting with a tube that came with the machine something like 8 to 10 years ago!, not running a water cooler just chucking ice cubes in the water tank.

Great machines

[Spooky]

Now one day away from July and the machine is STILL cutting like the day I bought it using the SAME tube that has been in it for several thousand hours.

I don't see any way it could have been any better, if the entire thing blew up tomorrow it would have still made me 50X what it cost to buy.

Premium quality at it's best!!

best wishes

Dave

[Spooky]

Machine now fitted with a 150-180 watt EFR tube (and a run time RF detecting meter designed and built by the legendary Tweakie)

Still running like a dream with an HPC CW4000 chiller attached.

This is what the laser industry should be like, solid dependable workhorses that make reliable money on all the tasks given to them.

cheers

Dave

[Spooky]

I really need to do an update on this as I haven't posted about the 1290 for some time (3 years)

I'll get something up as soon as I get a spare moment but suffice to say for now, another house and workshops move and the 90 is STILL running fine, total repair costs?

£50 in bearings (after it spent another 6 weeks out in the rain)

cheers

Dave

[PhillyDee]

Pushed mine from one unit to another, about 150 yards over a very rough Road. No problems whatsoever! Set it alight last year. Cleaned, realigned and still goong strong. Needed a new lens and wiring replaced for the Red dot.