Recent experience with FULL SPECTRUM

My laser has the 90 watt Reci tube upgrade. Tube sticker says 90watts, tested (By Reci) at 103.4 watts output, Manufactured in 2015, max current 29ma. I would like to point out that the meter never read above 28ma from day one. Now have about 3000 hours on tube.....read on and this will become clear.

Week before last I was engraving a cutting board and noticed that the engraving was getting lighter as it went down, then completely stopped. Checked what I could and called FS. They said it could be either the supply or the tube, (that was stating the obvious), and the only thing I could do is send in the power supply for them to check and if it was bad they would sell me a replacement for $600 + shipping, and was also told some mods would have to be done as they now use different supply's and instructions would be included So I pulled the supply.

The power supply looked as if it had been through world war three, had bent tabs, scratches all over it, the blue plastic on the aluminum was all torn on the bottom, all in places that seemed strange. Looked up the part number on google and it was an 80watt power supply!!! Well I opened it up and there were oblivious signs this was not only a used supply but it had been repaired!!!! Cracked circuit board has been repaired in three places and possible non OEM parts on board and the negative wire soldered onto the board that goes to the tube was only being held on about about 5 strands of wire and appeared to have also been re-soldered.

There was also a thermistor that was cracked and a jumper wire was not attached. So I thought the jumper needed to be re soldered. Did that and also correctly soldered the negative wire put it back in, work fine for about 5 minutes then the same thing. I remembered a post that someone wrote either here or another forum about parts in PC's to repair power supplies. Found the part I need and made a temporary fix.

After a conversation with RECI I was told that I have the wrong power supply in the unit and need the correct one as the 80 watt is way under powered for the S2/W2 tube.

Ordered the correct power supply, with 2 day UPS air......$220.00 !!!!!!! Installed new power supply and it has NEVER worked like it does now. Set it to 29ma output max, now jobs that used to be at 80 speed and 90 power are now running at 100 speed 70 power. Cuts like a hot knife in butter!

As you have seen I have been looking for a second laser to be able to expand our business. I found a really really good deal on a used machine that might have a bad control board. So before I purchased it I again contacted full spectrum on the cost of a replacement board. I am sad to say they NO LONGER SUPPORT THE STELLARIS board. The can offer a kit to upgrade to their new beagle bone board for about $2500 and said there WILL BE a $300 transfer fee even though I already own a FSL laser. For what I asked, support I was told, Support on a 5 year old machine? What support would you offer. In case you have questions! So I asked what happens if something was to happen to my existing control board? You have to upgrade!!!! So I said there are several features that seem to have bugs with the Beagle bone, features that I like and was partially the reason I purchased from FSL in the first place. Bringing me to a very important point... what are our rights? How can they continue to not support what they sell, not just my machine but others who have purchased and with all these software bugs machines are not working as described. I was told you can print from MS word, this is only true to a certain point, It WILL NOT recognize all word documents and sheet sizes. I have customers that used to send me word docs which now I have to import to corel draw to convert. When I first purchased I didn't have corel. I was told by sales a good reason to purchase from them is they are US based and always have parts on hand. This is not the case!!! There has to be some legal ramifications about their sales and support tactics. I really didn't want to purchase from a different company but with their current state I might be forced to give up "Retina Engrave"

It seems all Full Spectrum owners are being left out in the cold, here is a quote from another forum:

"Unfortunately, we have moved on beyond that model and those components for better machines and components. We still support those machines, and honor all warranties. RE1 had an update last year to version 4.420, we are fixing a few bugs for a 4.421 release. Hope that clears the air little bit confusion wise. "

So be prepared to dig deep, very deep into your wallet if anything happens to your control board!

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