questions re water system for CO2 laser

[goddessofchaos]

I just returned home after being gone for over a month and was going to fire up the laser when I noticed the water appeared cloudy. This is an HX3040 laser with a very simple system of distilled water in a container pumped through with an aquarium pump. It has worked well. When I checked the water I saw that ants had gotten into it (a problem here in Hawaii) and the water was not only cloudy but slimy and starting to turn green. I cleaned out everything completely including the pump but I would really like to set up a closed system to cool the tube.

My household water system is rainwater that has been double filtered and passed through an ultraviolet light. It is supposed to be cleaner than bottled water (but I am not sure about distilled water.) I bought distilled water for the system but would really like to hook this up to my household water, run it through some kind of cooling system and then through the laser tube.

If anyone has done something like this or has ideas I would love to hear them. I am not terribly knowledgeable about stuff like this but can follow directions. It is important that I can keep ants out as they have been able to get into closed containers in the past (they are very tiny!)

If someone else has used water other than distilled water without causing problems I would also like to hear from you as well. Thanks.

Jacqui, Goddess of Chaos, GSOLFOT

[lamicron]

Hi Jaqui, good to know you are again with your toy...!
I use common water, and have no problems, I change it once a week.
Luis

[goddessofchaos]

Thanks Luis. It was really stressed that distilled water was important because other stuff has impurities, but my purified water can't be worse than what I had going in my water system! I had planned to work on some drawings while I was away and of course I didn't so now I have nothing new to engrave but there is one I can rework (not happy with parts of it) and then I hope to do a prototype for a gallery to see if it will be saleable!

What are you doing for cooling? Right now I am just putting blocks of gel ice (blue ice) into the water container but eventually I should fix up a better system if it can be done inexpensively.

Jacqui, Goddess of Chaos, GSOLFOT

[lamicron]

Hi Jaqui, I have the original chiller they sent with the machine, is the 3000 series, very good pressure, you should get one, The best for operation ofthe laser is to keep it cool, in your case you don't know the temp. this system shows it to you, also has a beep sound when it gets out of water, it is very safe. Yoy will not need ice again!!!! And with your hot weather... I'm in the Andes Mountains almost 9.000 feet... fresh air, do not need to much cooling.

Sorry for the word file , I didn' t find how to paste direct to JPG file

[FlyGuy007]

I also have a 3000 series chiller but left water in it for a few weeks and it rusted pretty badly inside and the water turned kinda rusty.

I also have the pond pump system that came with the laser and after using both, I much prefer the 5gal bucket and cold water and the pond pump. I cut alot at 100% power (80w) and the chiller gets hot, sometimes over 40C. But with my bucker of water, I can remove hot and add cold water at will or drop in a bag of ice with almost no effort. And what could be easier to empty than a bucket of water? I know its not sexy like the water chiller but it works very well and is easy to clean and use.

Thanks
Mike Purcell

[goddessofchaos]

Thanks for the advice re keeping the bucket system. I have a friend here who is pretty knowledgable about building something like a wort chiller but he too thought that just be closing the system a bit better (too keep out ants and other varmints) it should work okay. This is right now just a small (3040) laser and I am not running it all day as a business so for my purpose it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time and money to keep the water cold. I just circulate the gel ice.

lamicron - I don't really have much of a hot weather problem here - more wet than hot! Doesn't get very cold either but water in the container does heat up a bit if I don't chill it.

More important right now if I want to cut acrylic is to vent it better. I saw a pretty neat set up today and if I can get the parts cheap enough I may do something like it. This was a venting system for a wax burn out oven and he made a kind of venturi set up inside the vent with a second fan blowing across it to draw (kind of like a water siphon only for air). Not one bit of smoke comes into the room so that could be perfect for toxic fumes from the laser.

Jacqui, Goddess of Chaos, GSOLFOT

[FlyGuy007]

Hey Guys;

The chiller I find is a pain as it MUST be changed regularly, very regularly or you will have problems. My first use of mine I used tap water and within a week or so noticed it kind of turning color. A few days later it was filthy, I got called out to work so just didn't have time to clean it when I first thought I noticed it. However, when I got back the water was greenish reddish brown (algae I now believe) . I thought it was iron from my water supply settling out but before I took drastic measures with CLR which I thought might damage something, I inserted 2-3cups if bleach into the system, ran the chiller for an hour or so and left it overnight. After several rinsings the tube and the lines were perfectly clear once again. The water had definately gone bad, like a hot tub does without chlorine. I switched to distilled water and a week later the water all turned red, this time definately from rust. I emptied out the chiller and lots of rust particles came out the bottom drain, maybe a teaspoon full or more. I can't imagine iron oxide would be a good thing to have in a laser tube and in fact won't use it again until I install a filter on the output line.

After this and the worries of getting rust stuck in the tube if it got carried it, I switched to the bucket and normal tap water. I fill the bucket, use my laser, if it gets warm, I simply scoop out half and fill it with cold water, too easy. When I am done I take one line out stick a small compressor onto the line and blow all the water out of the tube back into the bucket and within 3 minutes of shutting it down I have a fully empty laser tube and lines with no water near it and if I don't get back to it for a month I have no worries at all. Peace of mind is priceless.

Still that chiller with the digital readout sure is cool looking, just not worth the very large amount of extra work I have to do to keep it running versus the simple old pond pump.


Thanks
Mike Purcell