Hi all,
The manual says to clean the laser with 99% Ethyl Alcohol. Does it matter if it’s denatured?
I’m having an issue finding 99% ethyl that isn’t denatured.
Thanks all
Charles
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Denatured is actually a bit better, I’ve used it commercially to clean solid surface for gluing.
On the lens cleaning, I found some of the smoke stuck on my lens didn’t budge with 99% IPA. Yet, simple clean water got rid of it easily. So I took a wet cotton swap, swished it around the lens, then dried it with the other side. I then followed up with an alcohol clean, and again dried with the other side.
I imagine that it is hard to find alcohol over 95% that isn’t denatured. 95% is as pure as you can get via distillation. Going higher takes some chemistry, that then takes more effort to make food safe again. My (completely uneducated) guess is that you’d have to buy laboratory supplies.
And even then once you open the bottle in something other than a perfectly humidity free room it starts absorbing water right out of the atmosphere, dropping the percentage.
Denatured means it has small amount of methanol added to make it poisonous. Can be sold without being taxed.
I also run into deterioration of my 10W laser wood cutting performance. Suddenly, 3mm could not be cut properly anymore and the laser spot size obviously increases quite a lot. First, I thought it may had been caused by uneven wood plates with the focus being off or inconsistency of the hardness of the wood. But looking at the lens the reason was quite obvious. I cleaned mine by soaking a cotton swap in an alcohol pad and wiped the lens clock-wise as described by the user guide. This did bring back the cutting performance for me.
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I’ve been going through the manual, and it mentions using 99% Ethyl Alcohol for cleaning the laser. I’m wondering if using denatured Ethyl Alcohol would have any impact? I’m having a bit of trouble locating non-denatured 99% ethyl alcohol. Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I you are in USA 91% isopropyl alcohol from CVS will work just fine.
Whatever you use, just don’t scrub.
Air assist helps to keep the laser clean for longer.
You can get it on Amazon
thanks for these straightforward “before” and “after” images.
I have this square spot too, and I didn’t know if it was “normal” or not.
I have not cleaned it since day 1, and I do not have a “before” image.
Hello Snapmaker User’s
I have a 10W laser and have been cutting and engraving MDF and cedar wood to make products, but it takes about 20 hours each time to reach the state shown in the photo.
The lens is covered with dirt and the fan has a large amount of wood fines stuck to it and rolled into it,
If this continues, it is not good for the electronic board and is likely to short-circuit.
Does anyone who owns a 10W laser have a similar condition?
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I will also include a photo of the disassembly for 10W laser owners.
The solution is to use something like an air filter.
Top fan section and left and right panels
The same concept is used for the cooling of the power distribution panel of the large processing machine for manufacturing, which uses a thin filter to prevent dirt from being brought in.
Although it looks ugly and reduces the cooling effect and airflow, it can be replaced periodically to extend the period of disassembling and cleaning to some extent.
Since it is in this condition in a short time, it will surely break down if left unattended, so please clean it.
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great images… thanks for “scouting the trail ahead” and then reporting back…
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Hi Folks,
I have been using the 10W laser for about a year or so and I have been very happy with it. Last week I cut a couple of ornaments from 3mm wood and found that I was not able to use the automatic thickness measurement. I assumed it was just something to do with the wood. Today I switched back to the same card stock I normally cut and again have not been able to use the automatic thickness measurements. I can see a faint square in the middle of my laser lens and I will clean that. It’s very minor compared to the examples shown in this thread. I also see devices to both sides of the main laser that look likely to be an emitter and detector for the time of flight laser. I will clean those too but to my eye they look perfect. Is anyone aware of any other causes of failed thickness measurement for conventional material (not over 50mm thick, no reflection issue, etc.)?
For me it generally works, although admittedly I did not try with the most recent firmware yet, perhaps they introduced a bug? But perhaps asking some obvious questions: Do you see the red dot from the height measuring laser? Is the red dot on your workpiece? Did you calibrate with the calibration target recently?
Hi Hauke,
Thank you for your reply. Thickness measurement is working again. I had a warning on the touch screen to calibrate the camera (which I never use) so I started with that. That did not solve the automatic thickness measurement issue. Then I tried to calibrate with the little aluminum target as you suggested, and it looked like that helped. I ran a job on card stock and the thickness measurement was correct but the laser just engraved rather than cutting. Then I re-calibrated the tool head to the platform (manual contact with the plastic calibration card from Snapmaker) and ran the same job again and got a clean cut. It appears to me that cleanliness of the emitting and detecting system for the thickness laser was not the issue, and that the combination of calibrating to the aluminum target and the platform (in that order) seemed to be the answer.
It helps to have friends in high places! Happy making.