chaobell | Dear Epilog:

The cleaning procedures outlined in the manual for our laser engraver, which you have manufactured, tell us that one should not need to clean the actual laser eye itself since it is tucked away off to the side and presumably shielded from smoke and crud in some way. [ETA: it has been some time since I thoroughly read said instructions and I managed to misremember the hell out of this particular admonition]

So as said laser engraver began a gradual process of what appeared to be losing power over the past few months, attempting to clean said eye itself was furthest from my mind.

Today, finally fed up with the machine’s bullshit when a plastic name badge looked like crap when engraved at 100% power and 30% speed (the normal setting for this plastic is more like 80% power and speed, the setting I actually used is normally reserved for deeply engraving shit into solid wood) , I soaked a Q-tip in alcohol, bent it to reach the presumably shielded laser eye, scrubbed gently, and withdrew a black Q-tip. I repeated this process until the Q-tips I withdrew were no longer black.

As far as I know, this has never once been done in the 5+ years since this shop acquired this machine. Why has it never been done? Because supposedly, it did not need to be done. We knew this to be true because the owner’s manual had telled us so. Amazingly, the removal of 5+ years worth of guk on the laser eye fixed my problem immediately.

If this instruction manual had pants, they would be on fire [ETA: A friendly guy from Epilog has cruised by and cleared some things up. That was not the actual lazer eye, but a wee mirror (in my defense, the manual--which I've, uh, obviously not read in a while--does say it shouldn't need regular cleaning, which is probably why I was thinking what I was thinking). Anyway: lrn2RTFMbetter, self.]

Originally published at Fire of Unknown Origin. You can comment here or there.