Hey everyone! I can’t seem to find this info anywhere; does anyone know if there’s a way to check how many hours you’ve cut with your machine? Is that information stored somewhere?
I use it so sporadically; 2 minutes here, 15 minutes there, 30 seconds next, and so on. I’m not sure when I should be cleaning the cutter, as I don’t know if I’ve even used it for 40 hours yet.
The first things you’ll see get dirty are the two laser windows (the left side of the head, and then another on the left end of the gantry under the left cover of the machine.
The laser window on the head indicates to me when I need to clean. If I can see anything on that window, I know I should clean.
It really only takes under a minute to do a complete cleaning of the windows, lens and mirror, once you’ve done it once or twice.
And it probably wouldn’t be a bad thing to familiarize yourself with the process.
I clean it when the tube starts to look dirty. That can run anywhere from a week to a month depending on what I’m cutting and how much I’m cutting. Once in a while I take the hose off the back and check the exhaust fan as well, that can get crud built up on it that needs to be vacuumed out.
My husband and I bought a kilowatt meter plug for ours. We needed to be able to keep track of energy use to gauge the electric cost of running George (our GF).
He has some projects he needs to bid and we needed to know what to factor in for the cost of running our GF.