In recent years, the laser cutting market has developed in the direction of high power, and 10,000-watt laser cutting machines have been introduced to the market one after another. With the increase of laser power, many users have encountered the problem of the temperature of the cutting head rising.
At present, the ProCutter laser cutting head occupies a dominant position in the high-power laser processing market. For the problem of ProCutter’s high temperature and alarm, customers can follow the instructions below for preliminary inspection. If problems still cannot be solved, the cutting head can be sent to Precitec to inspect and repair.
Step One
a. Check the temperature of the cutting head, including collimating lens group, focusing lens group and lower protective lens displayed on the temperature interface of the ProCutter APP, identify the location where the temperature is too high.
b. Touch corresponding parts outside of the cutting head when it stops working to check whether the temperature displayed on the APP is true. If it is true, go to the next step; if feeling temperature is normal, but the APP temperature display value is obviously too high or unstable, also the second LED or the fourth LED light become red, please send the cutting head back to Precitec for for inspection and maintenance.
Step Two
a. Judge whether the cutting quality is worse than that under normal conditions.
b. Check the scattered light value displayed on the ProCutter app, and judge whether it is significantly higher than that under normal operation. If it is the same as usual, please contact the engineer to adjust the temperature alarm threshold, and customer is prohibited from operating this step. If the cutting quality is very poor and the value of scattered light is significantly increased, or even more than 500, proceed to the next step.
Step Three
Check whether the water inside chiller needs to be replaced. For pure stainless steel circuits, use only deionized water with a conductance as specified by the laser manufacturer. To protect the cooling water circuit (stainless steel) from galvanic corrosion, do not use copper or brass fittings, only stainless steel or plastic fitting is accepted. For efficient operation of the laser head, Precitec recommends checking the cooling water for microbial contamination every 6 months.
Step Four
a. Check the temperature of the chiller that supplies the ProCutter.
b. According to the following instructions on condensation, properly adjust the temperature of the chiller to prevent condensation combined with the local ambient temperature and ambient relative humidity.
c. If there is a clean workbench, you can remove the upper protective window for inspection, cleaning, and then trial cutting.
d. If the situation improves, continue to use the water temperature of the chiller; if the situation does not improve, please send the cutting head back to the Precitec. If there is no clean workbench, it is forbidden to plug and unplug the protective window.
Tip: In a high temperature and high humidity environment, the outlet water temperature of the chiller is generally set within the range of 30°C – 32°C.
Notes on condensation
1. Adjust the cooling water temperature
Due to the high temperature and high humidity environment in summer, condensed water is easily generated. And the condensed water on the optical fiber head can easily penetrate into the cutting head along the optical fiber interface, causing equipment accidents.
To avoid this problem, it is recommended to set the cooling water temperature not lower than the dew point temperature in the table below.
For example, point 1 in the table below refers to the dew point temperature when the environment temperature is 45°C (pay attention to the small environment temperature where the cutting head is located, which is usually higher than the large environment temperature) and the humidity is 60%, the dew point temperature is 36°C. So if the cooling water temperature used is equal to or lower than 36°C, there is a risk of condensation.
2. Seal the fiber interface with silicone-free insulating tape
The optical fiber insertion and maintenance of the laser head can only be carried out on a clean workbench.
Before inserting fiber each time, you should clean the dirt on the fiber interface and the fiber head. To prevent dust and dirt from entering the optical fiber interface by accident, it is recommended to insert the fiber horizontally into the cutting head.
Because there are much dust in the cutting environment, the optical fiber interface must be specially sealed. We recommend that you use a silicone-free insulating tape to wrap tightly around the fiber optic head and fiber jack in 3-4 layers.
