Greetings all, this is my first post. Please let me know if I break any protocols.

I have a gwiecke (sp?) Laser machine, bought from the now defunct Hurricane laser. 130 watt RECI tube, RECI power supply and Leetro control board.

It's about a year old and I recently replaced the laser tube. Now I have a weird problem. I'll spare you all the debugging and troubleshooting process I went through (a LOT!) the bottom line is this -- if I disconnect the water supply it shoots just fine. But when I attach the water supply, the beam loses its integrity and starts to spread out within a centimeter or two of the end of the tube. I'll attach a photo to show what I mean.

In these photos, the nice solid burn was made by firing the laser without water. The target was three feet away and I get a nice regular beam. I did this from one inch, one foot and three feet. Same result every time.

The ring-within-a-ring shot was made with the water flowing. This target was only about 2 centimeters from the tube. When the beam bounces around the mirrors, it just gets worse real fast.

My water supply is at 22 degrees, these shots were made at 25% power for 300 ms. I'd rather find a convenient workaround than have to argue with RECI over a defect/warranty claim. Any ideas?

-- Ron