[bobski]

Hi folks,

i am new to this forum. I am a technology technician at a school. We have 3 lasercutters, VL 300 and 2X VL200's.

All 3 are struggling to cut. There seems to be very little power when cutting as they won't cut 3mm perspex and cutting card needs 2 goes. I'm not an expert and i don't want to start taking them apart. I wondered if it was the gas cartridges but surely not all 3 would need new cartriges at the same time. Lenses show a good red beam andf set up to auto focus. anyone got any ideas. If we call out a specialist they want £75 per hour plus parts and we have to pay them from when they leave home. we are a school with limited funds and not much comes the way of technology. Im afraid that the academic subjects get the big budgets. anyone got any ideas?. where is gas situated and what does it look like?. Help!!.

Bobski.

[dkrenfrow]

Have the bulbs ever been replaced? When we had problems with our VL300 not cutting the parts dept. told me the bulbs usually last 5-6 years regardless of the amount of time the laser is actually running. If the bulbs have never been replaced I would pick one and buy a bulb to see if this cures the problem then I would suspect all three need bulb replacement.

I did ours in 2011 and it won't be long now before we will probably do it again as there is some noticeable loss in cutting power now.