[jason_alex]

Hey guys,

We are looking at a laser that a local company is selling but it has a blown Turbo (Diagnosed by there laser tech) Is this machine worth anything?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks,

Jason Alexander

[underthetire]

Worth anything, sure.
Depending on what laser system it has, the turbo retrofit can get quite expensive, plus you have no idea at this point what shape the laser cavity is in. I think 10 years ago, our turbo retrofit on our Amada with a PRC laser was north of 20K.

[jason_alex]

Right that what im seeing for the turbo around 25K Would you be ahead to throw a plasma on it?

Are the fanuc controls good on these? and how accurately can the machine move the plate?

[jason_alex]

I know a Laser isnt really something you can work on your self, but what can be done with a laser to verify that it is the turbo

[underthetire]

You need to be able to power it up, you won't know until the vacuum pulls down and the turbo kicks in. There is also a drive unit that controls the turbo. We just ordered a new one for ours again, 15.5k for the turbo and 2k for the drive. You could adapt the machine for whatever you want really. Nothing super special about the control interface, at least on ours. Might even make a decent router base..

[jason_alex]

The current owner said it wont pressurize, and he said he had a tech come in and look at it. where is the pressure built at? could it be something that got over looked or something simple?

[underthetire]

It always could be, but I wouldn't bet on it. No way to know till you get it and play around with it. If its the PRC brand laser on it, they are quite helpful over the phone, but be warned now, the turbine is close to the laser tube and has 20,000 volts. Just looking at it the wrong way will fry you to ashes. Fortunately, the laser won't energize till the pressure comes up.

[jason_alex]

Thanks!

[jason_alex]

Any ideas how to seperate the prc from the Amada?

[underthetire]

Well, as far as separating it, i think the only signal that would have to be jumped out is the shutter fault, since if it is a PRC, the laser warnings show up on a diagnostic panel, and all those faults only light the shutter fault light.

[jason_alex]

Sorry underthetire, I meant physical separating the two units. I saw a tube that is on top that goes between the Amada and the PRC. I didnt know at some point if it could be unbolted and moved or how you had to move it as one big unit?

[underthetire]

Don't know the answer for that. Ours came in before I started there. I can ask a couple old timers on Monday.

[keebler303]

Regarding testing the pump:

I'm not familiar with these lasers but if you guys are talking about a turbo-molecular vacuum pump, I may be able to help. They are basically a turbine that runs at very high speeds (100k or so). To check if it is functional, you could first check the drive for the pump. It should have a status light on it. The ones we have give you at least an LED to tell you it is on and running, up to speed, etc. If there are no faults obvious at the drive, then you can try to turn it on. Normally you would have a roughing pump that would pump down to .1 torr or so, then the turbo pump will spool up. If you can locate the pump, you should be able to hear it spin up. It sounds like a jet engine spooling up and has a high pitched whine when it is operating. The turbopump should get you down past .001 torr. If there is a vacuum gauge in the system, you could use that to see if it is working. It is quite likely that if it spins up, it is working so you will probably know what you need to know without a vacuum gauge.

There is normally a vacuum switch present so that when the roughing pump pulls it down to a low enough pressure, the turbo pump will start. If the roughing pump is faulty or the switch is bad, it may never get the signal to start. I think there are lots of possibilities other than the turbo pump. I have no way of knowing if their laser tech did anything to check if these other things were functioning. Worst case you could remove the turbo pump and send it back to the manufacturer to "evaluate". If it is ok, then you should be out less than $1k. If not, then you can get it fixed if you decide to go that route.

Matt

[underthetire]

In a nutshell, that's exactly how they work. What happens to the turbo is they seize up, either from lack of oil changes, or the water passages get clogged up and burn the thing to seizure. The vacuum roughing pump is 3500 exchange, the turbine is 15,500 or so exchange, and the PRC drive is 2500 or so. It is a 15hp at least on ours. Early turbos they used had serious problems with a cast impeller that can explode at speed, causing major damage. The PRC drive has a full digital display on it, and will show what's wrong.

[keebler303]

15HP! Dang! The ones we have on little stuff around here are fractional horsepower, about 3-4 inches in diameter. Also only air cooled.

Matt

[underthetire]

Well, ours is a little bigger than the one he's looking at. Ours is 2800+ watts.

[keebler303]

I want a 2800W laser! Biggest one we have is a 100W coherent RF tube but it won't cut metal.

[jason_alex]

Ok, Here is what the laser tech told us. That we would be better selling it out for parts than fixing the problem.... and it would cost more to fix the laser than what it would be worth. We might try to start it up and see where it is at and what it is doing. Looks like we will probably end up selling it off as is or parting it out. You guys have been great on this, I have had a hard time finding information on this. The Koolant Kooler is working just fine along with the Laser vac.

Thanks,
Jason Alexander

[underthetire]

I want a 2800W laser! Biggest one we have is a 100W coherent RF tube but it won't cut metal.

that's still small for us. We do have a couple under 200 watt, but we also have one up to 500terra watt . I play with the little 400 watt ones quite a bit. Funny thing, 2 years ago I knew nothing about cutting lasers at all. Now I've built a couple machines.

[jason_alex]

Ok guys, we got the laser getting ready to unhook it all, we have already got the koolant kooler unhooked and the laservac dust collector now we are just down to the prc, and the amada.... any ideas how to get the two of them apart without damaging anything. I wasnt sure if you had to unhook the prc when you sent it in for rebuild or if they came and unhooked it, any information would be great!