Is making it work at 90% or 80% of power but run it 2 passes with speed up a bit good for the life of the laser unit or the Glowforge machine itself?
Sorry, I just purchased the Basic model and wanna explore any possibility to prolong the life cycle :D.
It’s neither.
The machine was designed to run for two years at rated (full) power for the average home user. What is “average” is undefined, and variations in tube life are significant. Most “hobby” rated tubes seem to be about 2,000-3,000hrs. Industrial units are more like 10,000hrs.
Running at lower power won’t necessarily increase the life of the tube. Tubes also have a shelf life, so not using it won’t necessarily extend its life significantly, but if you’re only an intermittent user, you could certainly expect more than two years. I’m coming up on three.
Full power is not the maximum that the tube is capable of. Unlike cheap lasers, glowforge governed the power not to overdrive the tube to ensure a long service life.
Actually…me, too. Next month in fact.
thank you guys for the input! learned a lot.
Interesting, I had no idea about that. What deteriorates over time?
Glass leaks.
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