Laser Down

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I've been keeping myself pretty busy for the last few weeks but unfortunately for you guys my laser cutter has now developed a fault. For a long time now my laser has been playing up, it appears to be a problem with data corruption between my PC and the laser. Files can cut fine one day but download it again and the laser fails (in the on state) and draws a line right across the piece I'm working on.
Well in between those failures the machine has developed a second fault. The insulating shield on the laser tube has now failed. Large sparks were jumping from the tube straight to the laser case. Obviously this is not a good thing and the laser stopped cutting anyway so I investigated and found the smouldering lump of rubber pictured about. I don't know why it did this, but I turned the tube around in an effect to keep running. That worked for a few hours but then it started sparking from the same place.


It's not all bad news HPC were coming down to visit my on Wednesday anyway to help with the first problem, will have to wait and see what they say, until then the laser cutter is out of action. I did manage to get dozens of kits made up in time for my workshop this week, and I have managed to complete all the prototypes for a further 3 projects, but as they're all wedding related you're going to have to wait until the wedding happens before I post those up.


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