We recently purchased an 80w CO2 laser from Strong Signstec and shipped it to Aus. We had read the many and various disaster stories of importing a laser from China but due to the cost comparison ($7,000 for an 80w v $35,000 for a 50w) we armed ourselves with as much info as we could, held our noses and dived in.
The importing process was smoooooooth thanks to our Customs Broker (no duties to be paid just GST and port handling fees) and we picked up our laser engraver with no problems. The packaging seemed fine and the build quality looked acceptable.
We have had some software problems. The CD loaded with LaserCut 5.3 was corrupt but Wang helped solve that OK.
However..... and now it's a big however...... when we first set up the laser, attached the cooler and ensured bubbles were removed from the system, all appeared OK. The laser fired fine, cooler seemed to work perfectly. Then all of a sudden, no laser firing.
After some fiddling around we worked out that the laser tube had blown a small hole into the inner part of the tube, flooding the enitre tube with water.
We had ordered a spare tube (because of the all the problems as posted) to ensure that if something like this happened we had a spare to work with. So we connected the new tube but now we still have a non-firing laser.
So the long way round to my question is this..... can a flooded laser cause enough of a power surge to short out the power supply OR would a faulty power supply be able to cause a spike enough to damage the laser?
Any help or suggestions would be gratefully received.