Laser Troubleshooting

	Pages to do with the Laser Cutter:
	Big laser cutter Laser Class Laser Cutter Resources Laser Exhaust System Laser Service Log Laser Settings Laser TODO Laser Troubleshooting Laser Usage Procedure Small Laser Cutter Space Computers/laserchicken

Stuff we have learned and possible fixes we have learned from common problems.

It is not cutting // etching

1. Is the water cooling & blower power strip turned on? Check the water reservoir, is water flowing out of the 'exit' hose?
   • Turn on the water cooling & blower power strip, or plug them in.
2. Was (Is) someone leaning on the lid to the laser?
   • Don't. There is a magnet in the lid and a sensor on the laser, leaning on the lid can cause the two to separate and the laser to turn off mid-cut.
3. Have you adjusted the power on the laser itself?
   • Don't. Turn it back up to 100%, make all adjustments to laser power on the computer.
4. Did you remember to click "Compute" after making changes to laser power // speed, and did you remember to 'download' the file to the laser after making those changes?
   • Do so.
5. Has it been a while since you zero'ed the 'Z' Axis?
   • I know this sounds odd, but after 15 minutes of troubleshooting I tried this and it started cutting again...
6. How warm is the coolant water?
   • Dunno if this could be an issue, but it sounds like a reasonable thing to check.
7. Soft Stop error when you try to start cutting.
   • This means you have cuts outside of the allowable cutting error. Move all of your lines into the grid in LaserCut to get rid of this error.

It is not cutting // etching what I just told it to cut // etch where I told it to cut // etch

1. Did you download your latest changes to the laser?
2. If starting a job from the laser, do you have the correct job selected?
   • Note it is possible for different jobs to have the same name (sometimes, we have not figured out why sometimes it asks you to replace and sometimes it just adds another entry)

Error Downloading the file to the Laser

• Did you open LaserCut before turning the laser cutter on?
  • The laser cutter has to be turned on first - before you open the LaserCut software. Save your work in LaserCut, exit the program, turn the laser cutter off, turn it back on, re-open LaserCut.