Cooling laser tube with antifreeze

[bibi]

I have cooling units out of my working room( in garage without warming ) and for prevent of freezing I am mixing distill water with antifreeze liquid.Now I have some light green water for cooling. Does that have some effect on working(power of laser, beam or something)?
I think that laser power is lower then before and not sure is it because antifreeze liquid or is time for changing a laser tube with new one. Before I am not try cutting a acrylic plate, but now can`t cut 4 mm (0.157480315 inch) acrylic plate with 60w laser on 95% of power and 10% of speed .
Is it normal or ....

[samco]

If your using automotive antifreeze - I would be worried about the stop-leak plugging small Orifices within the laser. (if there is any) I know with our 1kw laser - we where told specifically not to use any antifreeze with stop leak - we just use glycol.

my 2 cents.

sam

[phil c]

If I understand how the tube works, the excitation light has to go through the coolant. The dye in the coolant is probably absorbing some of the energy and cutting the output. Try Sam's advice and flush out the system and get some plain, uncolored glycol instead of antifreeze.

[SkipW]

I don't think that the beam does actually travel through the coolant, it's just surrounded by it.

I added about 3 cups of Sierra brand (propylene glycol) antifreeze to my chiller water to lower the freezing temp of the distilled water just in case the heat would shut off unexpectedly in my shop during the night. My chiller water now has a light green color to it and everything works as before, as far as I can tell. I'm running an 80w LC6090 glass tube machine from wklaser.

Does anyone have a source for just the clear propylene glycol? It's not available locally.

[Micheal Donnellan]

Try ebay I usually find a lot of stuff I have no hope getting locally there. Item number: 330188993555 99% pure

will be intrested in finding out how you get on with it. you using distilled?

[SkipW]

Good advice, Michael.

Found a gallon on ebay.

Thanks !!!

Yes, I'm using distilled water.

[bibi]

OK,
we discussed my first part of problem and I think that my problem is not in cooling liquid. Second part of my problem:

I think that laser power is lower then before and not sure is it because antifreeze liquid or is time for changing a laser tube with new one. Before I am not try cutting a acrylic plate, but now can`t cut 4 mm (0.157480315 inch) acrylic plate with 60w laser on 95% of power and 10% of speed . Is it normal or ....

[MonoNeuron]

Hi Bibi
If your laser tube is over 6-8 months old then it will probably be reducing in power. For some reason the glass lasers don't last very long so you can expect about 12 months max out of them. There may be some exceptions but thats what I ended up with. The guys I bought mine from stated that it would last 10-12 THOUSAND hours but it didn't even get used before it was stuffed and flat out putting out 10 watts from the original 30.
I can't see how any anti freeze could worry the glass tube lasers except if it aided in an electromagnetic induced reaction but I think Glycol is pretty inert for that type of thing. Propylene Glycol is used in the food industry and is way more expensive than Ethylene Glycol but Ebay would be your best bet for that.
Rich.