Laser lens quality

[ant42onia]

This may seem like a basic question, but with nothing to compare it too, I don't know how 'clean' the lens is.

It appears to have very fine scratches that can only be seen by someone with good eyes (me) in a certain light. Is that acceptable? Or is the lens officially 'damaged'? It still cuts as well as when we got it (almost a year ago now), but it's a used machine.

I'm just starting to wonder when a new lens would be appropriate.

Secondly, I notice many people advise cleaning the lens once a day. The manual for our laser (a mazak TX48-turbo) says to clean it once every three months. I don't trust any other operators to take the lens out and clean it without damaging it too much more. I find it hard to believe that dissasembling the torch every day would be an effective cleaning schedule ~ is there something I'm missing?

Thank you for any advise you can give me

 

[msandoval]

Do understand that today's OEMs recommend to clean the lens once every 8 hours because it is fairly easy to get to, lenses are being put through more stress (higher powers, although optics life and technology has improved) and again, it's a recommendation.

I perfectly understand what you mean by disassembling the torch on your TX-48 because it is a total pain to take apart and then put together. It is one of the first machines I ran and I hated doing that and the blue light test for the focus.

I don't think you have to clean it everyday but do look at it and clean it if need be. As far as the scratches on the lens, if it cuts fine, then don't replace it but do keep an eye on it because you don't want it to crack. Get a set of polarizing lenses, place one in the front and one in the back of the lens and if you see a cross that runs all across the lens, then you might think of replacing it.

II-VI used to sell a white solution to remove scratches off the optics but in today's world if you are having to remove scratches off the lenses it may be more cost effective to buy a new one than hoping by buffing the optic it will cut again as it's new.

Push comes to shove, I would contact the Mazak Applications Department for advice. It doesn't matter whether you bought the machine used or new from them or someone else, they should be able to help you.

Good Luck

 

[IRstuff]

Anything mechanical done to a lens surface is a potential for damaging the coatings on the lens, which, in turn, can lead to lens failure.

Frankly, I don't think that anyone outside of your plant can give you specific timing for lens cleaning, particularly since they'd have no idea what your specific process and conditions involve.

I would suggest daily inspection of the lens for dust, or haze, with something like a strong light source parallel to the surface of the lens. It'll definitely need cleaning at that point. Determine the amount of processing time to get to that stage and set the preventative cleaning to occur well before that time. Periodic inspections should still continue to verify that the process or other conditions haven't changed and that the lens is still in good condition prior to each cleaning.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[ant42onia]

Thank you. I've put in an order for linear polarizing lenses (I had no idea there was such a large selection until I googled 'polarizing lens'!).