Whether you’re a DIY laser cutter or a large-scale manufacturing business, maintaining your laser cutting machine is essential. Doing so not only prevents more expensive repairs in the future and increases the lifespan of your machine, but it can also boost performance & safety.
That’s why the laser cutting machine experts at Accurl put together this laser cutter maintenance checklist complete with top tips to ensure your equipment lasts as long as possible with peak performance.
First, let’s look at an easy-to-follow checklist.
Laser Cutter Maintenance Checklist
To keep it simple for you, we put together this weekly and monthly laser cutter maintenance checklist. Make sure to inform your employees and teams of these laser cutting maintenance and troubleshooting steps to follow to ensure proper maintenance of your machines.
Daily Laser Cutter Maintenance
These are the most important daily tasks for laser cutting machine upkeep:
- Inspect the Machine, checking for wear, damage, and loose bolts, screws, and electrical connections.
- Check safety enclosures to make sure they are in place and secure, before using the machine on any given day.
- Calibrate the machine control system, ensuring that the control parameters are properly set. This includes everything from focus position to material type, laser power, cutting speed, and more.
- Inspect the alignment the laser beam, and adjust it as needed to ensure peak performance and precise cutting.
- Examine coolant levels as well as the pump, hoses, and other related areas to make sure it is working correctly.
Weekly Laser Cutter Maintenace
Want to know how to extend laser cutter lifespan? Then don’t forget to follow these tasks each and every week:
- Clean the laser lens & mirrors, making sure there is no damage, debris, dust, or other issues that could impact the precision and accuracy of cuts.
- Clean the air filter, which is essential for cooling the laser and ensuring an efficient machine.
- Double check the laser output, which can change over time. That’s why you should check the power and output each week to ensure accurate cuts while reducing material waste or rough edges.
- Maintain machine logs, and check for any error codes over the lasr week. If there are errors, then you can identify and fix them ASAP, helping to prolong the lifespan of your laser cutting machine.
Monthly Laser Cutter Maintenance
Finally, at least twelve times a year, you and your laser cutting machine operators should be performing these tasks:
- Examine the cooling system, changing the cooling water, inspecting the pump, looking for damage, seeing if there are leaks, and making sure the coolant levels are correct.
- Inspect the exhaust system to make sure the potentially toxic fumes and smoke doesn’t escape. Make sure you look for any blockages, check that all fans are working, and find out if the exhaust system is ventilating without overheating.
- Check all electrical connections including power supply, control panels, and wiring so that they are right, secure, and safe.
Annual Laser Cutter Maintenace
While you can do these tasks more than once per year, you should make sure you do them at least annually:
- Schedule a professional inspection so that a technician can identify any potential issues before they get worse. With Accurl machines, we’ll provide these inspections for you, so that you can have peace of mind knowing your MasterLINE Fiber Laser Cutting machine is still as accurate, efficient, and safe as the day you got it.
- Check all records and logs, looking for any potential error codes, issues, or abnormalities.
- Test all components, including the power output, laser nozzle, CNC unit, cooling system, and more. We also recommend performing a highly precise cut test, to ensure that your machine is still accurate and properly calibrated.
Laser Cutting Machine Troubleshooting Tips
Troubleshooting laser cutters is inevitable, even with the best-in-class machines offered by Accurl. That’s why we’re here to help you troubleshoot some of the most common issues.
Misaligned Laser Beam
You might notice a poorly aligned laser beam when the cut quality and accuracy decreases. For example, you might notice inconsistent cut depths, lines, and qualities. This can happen from physical impact, gradual shifts, or machine vibrations.
To fix, you can use a pulse-tape alignment. Place a piece of tap on each mirror along the laser path. Then, fire a low power laser pulse and adjust the mirro angles until the burn marks are consistently centered on each mirror.
Inconsistent or Poor Power
You might notice inconsistent or inadequate power with uneven cuts, shallow cuts, or rough edges. To fix, first you should check all connections to make sure they are tight and proper. Then, you need to verify the laser power settings and parameters, ensuring they are set to the right material type, thickness, and cutting speeds.
If that doesn’t help, you need to calibrate the focus, check the cooling system, clean the exhaust & optics components, and calibrate the machine.
Overheating of Components
If your laser cutting machine is overheating, it can negatively impact performance, safety, and machine lifespan. So, what can you do about it?
Check the cooling system, coolant levels, and connections. Then, top up the coolant or switch the water to make sure it’s effeceintyl cooling. If this doesn’t work, then you might want to double cehck the CNC parameters.
If that doesn’t work, you might need professional repairs. Just make sure you stop using the machine in the meantime to avoid potential safety hazards or expensive damage to your laser cutter.
Material Warping
If your materials are warping, it’s likely caused by excessive heat during the cutting process. Usually this is an easy fix. Before you do anything else, double check the parameters including the material type and thickness.
Then, reduce laser power or increase cutting speed to minimize heat buildup that could be causing the warping.
Conclusion
If you follow this weekly and monthly laser cutter maintenance checklist and troubleshooting tips for laser cutting machine upkeep, then you’ll boost performance, enhance precision, and extend the lifespan.
However, the best precision & performance comes from an elite machine. No amount of laser cutting machine maintenance can boost a low quality or cheap machine to the type we offer here at Accurl. That’s because we have over three decades of expertise in building the best laser cutting machines on the market. Click here to browse our world-class machines today!
