Laser Cutter Warning Signs

If you see any warning signs, SHUT OFF THE LASER CUTTER and evaluate.

First step, make sure you remember to turn on the exhaust blower, and if you did, check to see if the exhaust blower fan is working properly.

General Warning Signs

Watch out for these warning signs:

1. excessive smoke in general may indicate problems
2. smeared burns or poor cutting performance
3. visible smoke rising from the cut point rather than being sucked away underneath
4. brighter light from the cut point
5. frequent orange sparks

If you see any of these warning signs you should stop and take appropriate actions, because continuing to cut with these warning signs may lead to further degradation of the laser cutter performance, even possibly damage to the laser cutter or, most importantly, safety risks.

Note: Smoke accumulation on the lense not only interferes with the cutting performance, it causes heat buildup which can eventually permanently ruin the lense. Each lense costs around $50 to replace.

Excessive smoke resulting from proper use (see power setting notes below) of the laser cutter may indicate that the exhaust system is not operating properly. The most obvious (and easiest) things to check are, in ascending order of difficulty:

1. the vent on the exhaust blower fan
2. the vent inside the laser cutter leading to the exhaust blower fan
3. the internals of the exhaust blower fan
4. the internals of the ventilation duct.

Smeared burns or poor cutting performance may indicate a dirty lense, or may indicate that you need to re-do the laser focusing (Z-registering, aka checking the laser height/focus with the height gauge).

For Z-registering the laser height/focus, refer to your laser cutter training.

For cleaning the vents and lense, see below.

For the internals of the exhaust blower fan and ventilation duct, stop using the laser cutter and contact the board (use the @board tag on the HackPgh slackchat). Do not use the laser cutter until the problems have been addressed.

Power Setting Warning Signs

The following signs can all indicate a problem with cutting, usually related to power

1. Visible smoke rising up (not down) from the cut point
2. Brighter light at the cut point
3. Frequent orange sparks being thrown off from the cut point

If everything else is proper (e.g. ventilation, z-registering, etc), these are usually symptoms of the laser not cutting all the way through. You need to adjust your power and speed, or you need to reconsider if your material is appropriate for cutting in the laser cutter.

Too much power/too low speed can also be a problem, it can cause too much smoke generation, which then interferes with the cutting action. 60-70 power seems to be the sweet spot for most general use with thin (around 1/4") plywood.

Adjusting power and speed is outside the scope of this document. Hopefully someday we'll have more info on that and will link to it from here.

Note that any power level below 15, the laser cutter will not actually turn on the laser.

Also note that there are different power settings for corner cuts, check the LaserCut Pro UI to make sure that both power settings are appropriate.