Only cuts through with 2 passes

Community Support
1

Hello! I almost solely cut MDF. I also THOUROUGHLY take apart and clean my machine bimonthly (if you cut MDF you know)…

But here’s the sitch - about six months ago it stopped cutting through unless I set the regular 1/8 MDF to two passes.

Now - I do this for a living and cut 5-8 SHEETS a day. And it’s now turned 1/2 hour sheet into an hour (I make some tiny supplies). Take this plus a baby I have zero time to troubleshoot (currently feeding the kid while I write this). Any ideas of what I can do to make this faster/ or fix the problem? I have a 2021 machine, midgrade. Not the top line, the one below it.

I truly don’t think it’s dirty, I less I’m missing somewhere to clean. I have zero alignment issues and I have a solid light beam and laser beam. I also engrave silicone watchbands and that is still spot on. It just takes two whole runs to cut through.

Any ideas?

2

I really think you may need to clean the optics and fans more often. Both mdf and silicone deposit lots of debris. You could also experiment with slower speeds and one pass.

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See, even DIRECTLY after cleaning everything it still won’t cut through on one.

4

Have you tried slowing the speed?

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I honestly have not, what would you recommend? Exactly in half?

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6

It’s honestly possible that your tube is weakening. A lot of us are still on our originals, but if you’re cutting every day that’s a lot of hours. If you reach out to actual Support (they’ve got phone, email, and Discord now) they can double check, and if that’s the issue they can adjust your machine on the back end so you won’t have to change anything.
To verify the issue is with your machine and not that, for example, your MDF has changed. Cut the Gift of Good Measure on some PG MDF/Draftboard and see if you have the same issue.

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7

Wait wait, you’re saying they control how strong the laser is?

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8

They cannot make the laser stronger, but if your laser has weakened through normal aging they can adjust its individual calibration so that it compensates for that… At least if you are not operating at full power. Obviously, there is still a limit to what they can do.

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9

Print the Gift of Good Measure on Proofgrade with Proofgrade settings and share a photo if it doesn’t cut all the way through.

As for your mdf, slow your speed in increments of 10 until it cuts through.

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10

MDF is dirty enough that it could mess up the windows in minutes. Apparently PG draftboard is supposed to be cleaner but depending on the source it could be a lot worse if you are not using PG material.

The window under the side and on the left side of the head are most prone to mess up and I have had and fixed “not cutting though” when I could not see any mess on the windows but the Zeiss wipe showed some brown. Baltic Birch or what is sold as Revolution Plywood would cut a lot cleaner and faster.

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