I’ve been using the Sienci laser for a month now. Not a lot of use, maybe a couple hours of engraving at most. Today i was trying to do a simple engraving for our Little Free Library but the laser wont burn the wood. I’ve slowed dow the engraving to 4 passes 5mm/s at 100% and it still isnt great. I’ve checked the focus although have trouble getting a fine dot
The Sienci test file at 24mm/s @100% barely leaves a mark at the darkest part.
I took the lens out and it appears to have a hole through it. Have I somehow damaged the lens?
@Minidb I suggest that you write to Sienci. However, I wonder if you are seeing a burn spot on the lens. In my ignorance, I would not have thought it was possible to burn through a lens with a diode laser. After all, you can’t etch glass with one. However, I am very open to being proven wrong. In the meantime, you may want to take a cotton swab and some alcohol to see if the spot cleans off.
Of course, if you can actually see a hole through the lens, ignore all this.
please report back on what you find.
When I look through my lens, there is a small section in the middle that looks like a lens within the lens…perhaps this is what you are seeing?
When I was having focusing issues, I swabbed out the inside of the lens with 95% alcohol and a cotton earbud and it.seemed to sort the issue out.
Also check that the dip switches on the back of the laser controller are set to max (I think it was 5.?) and that the slider on Gender isn’t at 0.
Definitely a hole, tried to clean it as suggested but its a divit, not a smudge!
Racking my brains òver what i could have done to cause this but I’m coming up empty. I do take the laser off when carving but its stored in the original packing in a drawer so protected when not in use.
I do remember bottoming out the Z axis but had the air assist on so the lens is somewhat protected.
Not sure what happened but it appears I’ll need a new lens!
@Minidb Sorry for the bad advice, Doug. I learned something new. I hope that you will contact Sienci. I’ll be very interested to hear Ikenna’s take on this.
Grant, appreciate the suggestion, I’d have hated to replace the lens just because it got dirty!
I’ve opened a ticket with Sienci.
I keep the post updated
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Hey, just about to reply to your ticket. We’ll have a replacement shipping number for you tomorrow. Just going to ask you to confirm your shipping address via the ticket.
Cheers,
Thanks Ikenna, excellent customer service as usual.
Any thoughts on how this happened?
New lens arrived yesterday and I spent the day running test patterns. It seems that the lens issue has been a problem for a while as all the tests I did yesterday were waaaay to dark initially. Maybe, possibly cracked from the start???
Got it dialed back in now!
Thanks again to Ikenna and Sienci Labs for the quick response and great service!
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