Part way through a cut, the laser stopped firing. Whilst I looked through the lid I thought I could see a faint red spark under the glass tube. Investigation found others with a similar problem and photos of the red power cable (the fat silicone one) that runs beneath the tube from left to right.
I’ve fixed the problem by cutting the cable and crimping a new length in. The question is what causes this to happen in the middle of the cable run? I’d love an answer.
Thats a good question. Could it have been caused by some impurity in the cable insulation? Usually I believe it is caused by damage to the cable or something rubbing the cable. I am interested in ideas.
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It’s odd. The cable is static at the point of insulation failure. Throughout the cable run it’s within an aluminium channel in the carriage, with the fail point about 4” in from the left hand end, seemingly common with other failures I’ve seen posted.
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They’ve added an extra sheath around this wire to the production process at some point, but that hasn’t stopped some tiny percentage of machines from having a short. I don’t think the factory that makes these knows why it happens either!
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Having just had a conversation with an electrical engineer friend of mine (automotive specialist), he considers this a stress failure. When I removed the red cable from the extrusion under the tube, it took a good tug to do so, like it got released from being trapped, possibly by the build up of sticky dirt, holding the cable firm. That point there could well be where the otherwise flexible cable is held and prevented from moving at all. As my friend says, a fault like that exploits weakness, weakness that would be caused by a strand or two of the 7 strand cable being constantly worried by movement until it breaks. If the red cable were a looser fit inside the aluminium channel, allowing movement back and forth, this failure may not occur.
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