New Toy - 25W CO2 Engraver

[Junktronix]

Last Sunday I found someone selling an old Xenetech Aurora laser engraving machine on Craigslist. Despite a raging hangover (bachelor party, my place, went till 4am) I managed to be the first person there with cash and a pickup truck. It was filthy, but had a 30x18" work area and a 25W Synrad CO2 laser that's modern enough to be re-gassed if necessary. I talked him down a bit and brought it home. I've spent the last 3 days tearing it apart, cleaning, realigning and reassembling it and . . . it works perfectly! Even better, I'm seeing just over 25W after all the mirrors and focus lens. One mirror and the lens are shot so I expect another few watts once those are replaced. I'd never heard of Xenetech before, but they seem like a good company and still support this model.

[mixedgas]

dude, plexiglas, but dont breath the fumes.
had one of those by a competitor at my old job. Nice toy.
you have the assist gas working?
model airplane guys will pay you to use it!

Steve

[Lasernerd]

Is there honeycombed alum.plate under that hello thing?
Pretty sure we had one in our machine shop..i used it to etch little slivers of microsope slides.

[Junktronix]

Still working on a good ventilation system using a couple of blowers left over from my argon days so no plexi for a while (cough cough). It has the air assist option but I haven't plumbed it to my compressor yet. Gotta figure out where to put this beast and still be able to get the beemer in the garage

dude, plexiglas, but dont breath the fumes.
had one of those by a competitor at my old job. Nice toy.
you have the assist gas working?
model airplane guys will pay you to use it!

Steve

[DjDevNull]

dude, plexiglas, but dont breath the fumes.
had one of those by a competitor at my old job. Nice toy.
you have the assist gas working?
model airplane guys will pay you to use it!

Steve

hehe you bet! when are you taking orders

[Junktronix]

hehe you bet! when are you taking orders

Once I get it figured out, I'll do small jobs for PL members for free

Steve, I was thinking about setting this up at the far end of my lab from the compressor. Rather than run a long pipe, I was thinking about using compressed CO2 for the air assist since I have a couple of cylinders from my beer making and mig welding habits. Do you know if this is a bad idea? It occurred to me that CO2 might absorb the output from a CO2 laser.

[keeperx]

Tear off the safety interlock.. its time for some laser tattooing

[Laserman532]

Now you have a new co2 lazer i thought I would set the bar for you just a tad Cant wait for pictures

[Laserman532]

hehe you bet! when are you taking orders

I take orders today What do you want to do?