Hi All
Thanks for the info.
@macona - you're right, a workable power meter would be a useful thing - if only they weren't half the price of a new tube
I'm guessing that there has to be an open source version that we could build for a few dollars that would be sufficiently accurate (or at least consistent) - might be worth a project slot here on buildlog.
Looks like they're nothing more than a temperature/time monitoring system. You already know the power has dropped off anyway, but it would give you a warm feeling of how much
@tim - looks like mine has joined yours (and many others no doubt) in the great tube graveyard
I swapped out my spare tube this morning and it's all back up and running again. My spare tube (coletech) was actually 60mm diameter as opposed to the 55mm it should have been. I thought they had shipped an 80W (I wish
), but it was only 1200 long - it must have come from another company. What is annoying, is that my mounts were cut for 55mm tube diameter - fortunately, I had the presence of mind to design and cut a new set last week (deja vu ???) - did them in 6mm clear blue acrylic this time - very sexy.
I did a complete realignment from the tube up and managed to get the beam down the same hole at the four corners (bear in mind that my table is 1200x600mm - 48"x24") - I'm pretty happy about that - there was some beam divergence at the faraway corners on my last setup. Beam is nicely vertical too.
What is strange is that I thought to do another focus test - best focus was about 2.5mm below where it was before ! That IS strange - it's a 63.5mm lens - I checked it a few times, but that's where I get the best line without a doubt. I can only guess that my previous setup was wrong
I'll be checking that again !
Cheers
Neil