[Frosted Images]

I truly believe that the life of the tube is the day of manufacturing. I owned a G. Weike LG3040 40W laser and went through two tubes in 3 months. I truly believe these glass tubes were used to test other lasers. So you do not know what you get in your order.

C02 lasers are not efficient when it comes to producing wattage. The big no...no is running it in conditions of 78 to 86 degrees. It makes the laser work harder to produces rated wattage. In the long run you are killing your charge. G. Weike lasers are well built and I cant take anything away from their technology.

Consequently, if you are going to make an investment I would invest in a RF laser, not glass tubes. After all my laser expertise, I finally end up buying an Epilog Legend 36EXT 60 watt machine. I have not regretted a day of my purchase. Chinese lasers have minor flaws that does allow that quality etching and engraving. Such as grayscale, etching only 1 bit Black & White engraving.

Glass tubes are simply a headache and more hassle then the RF sealed lasers.

[smoe]

I can only speak for our 80W Gweike machine here.
We purchased it in 2007 and ran the first tube until last year when we switched to the spare tube that we purchased as a reserve.
There is only a marginal difference in power between the two tubes. Both are still around 70 watts at 95% Power. The one from the shelf hasn't become much worse from just lying around, the first tube is also still very usable (seems a small bit weaker)

[Frosted Images]

And that is the thing. You shouldn't have to worry about whether your tube is losing power just by sitting on the shelf. I was for sure that I could truly benefit from my glass tube laser. However, I find that the heavy hitters of the laser industry are far more superb. I can truly count on 5 years at the least with my Epilog full charged. On the other hand, I don't know if the glass tube would last 30 days or 6 months. Running a business...you can not be taking that gamble.

[Frosted Images]

And that is the thing. You shouldn't have to worry about whether your tube is losing power just by sitting on the shelf. I was for sure that I could truly benefit from my glass tube laser. However, I find that the heavy hitters of the laser industry are far more superb. I can truly count on 5 years at the least with my Epilog full charged. On the other hand, I don't know if the glass tube would last 30 days or 6 months. Running a business...you can not be taking that gamble.