I'm having an issue with my Universal Laser Systems ILS12.150 150 watt CO2 Laser. I work at a sign shop. We've had the machine for close to 10 months now. All of a sudden, my machine won't cut paper mask on acrylic with the exhaust on.

My normal setting is 30% power, 100% speed, both lasers. With the exhaust on, it cuts the top half of the sheet just fine. When it goes down to the second, the laser glitches out, does a double cut, slams to the top of the machine, and starts cutting the second row, but over top the first row.

When I hit pause or cancel, the gantry slams against the back of the machine again, and it drags the laser head very rough home.

If I turn the exhaust off, it works perfectly.

The exhaust is on a completely different circuit. We tried moving the power to the exhaust to the other side of the shop, thinking there may be some kind of electrical interference. That didn't solve it.
I tried redoing the program, that didn't work. I tried changing the color of the cut line (usually green) to different cut colors (red, blue, black), but that didn't work.

If you can think of it, I tried it. It makes no sense.

I found today that if I drop the speed from 100% to 94% or less, it sort of works with the exhaust on. The only issue with that is the line it cuts is wobbly.
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We recently had some work done on the machine. It had to be serviced for z-axis belt that was shot due to bad bearings on the axis. That was causing the machine to also cut out of square. They also installed a shutter bypass that allows the laser to operate with the side doors open. I completely disconnected that bypass, thinking MAYBE it had something to do with the issue, but it solved nothing.

I called the service tech. He's at a loss. He called Universal, and they are at a loss.

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