⚠️ Laser Out Of Action Until Further Notice

@laserusers

Due to damage to the gantry, resulting in the mirror being unable to be secured properly - The Laser is out of action until further notice - We are looking to bring it back on line as soon as we can, and will update soon.

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Hello!

This is by no means any sort of pushing / pressuring / trying to annoy. I’m just trying to plan whether to fly to London this weekend…

Based on the kind of injury the laser has had… Do you think it may be back in action by Sunday? Or is that unrealistic?

Again, not complaining or annoying, just trying to figure out probabilities :grin:

Thanks!

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I will provide an update when i have one - I’m not able to give an eta at this moment

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OH BOY!

It’s just as well I checked the messages because I was about to head out into the freezing cold tomorrow for a session at 11am.

I will cancel.

Hi there! Just checking in to see if the laser is back in action?

Still out of action - when there is news, i’ll put up a post :slight_smile:

Wait why?

What happened to the temporary fix?

Sorry - to clarify (didn’t see which topic this was).

The laser is ok for inducted people - just don’t touch the mirror please.

It’s out of action for inductions until the repair is made

More details are on - https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org/t/laser-is-back-kind-of/37906

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Ok thanks for the clarification!

@lasertechs

@metaltechs have shortened the mirror screw heads by 1mm, which means they are 1mm longer and are now working properly. Can you verify?

To me this should mean the laser can be used normally including for inductions until the new part arrives, but will leave the final determination to you.

Thanks!
Andy

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Cool - Will have a look when i’m in tomorrow (hopefully the new part isn’t far away)

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I noticed the laser is down again, unfortunately I hadn’t seen anything about that before I came in ready to work on a project, so I thought I’d bump this thread until it is operational again. Thank you to the laser team for dealing with so much so far this year!

It’s worth noting that the laser is marked as out of order on the space bookings to (try to) prevent disappointment, as you should be booking the laser before use (to prevent people coming in to use it to see it already in use etc.)

As soon as we have an update on it’s status it’ll be screamed from the rafters! We’re trying to get it back on line asap

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Does anyone have a membership to another space with a Lasercutter - I’m willing to pay, and do one hours lasercutting. Hackspace maybe?
Thanks!

I had a look around in 2023 and there was a laser cutting room.

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Yeah I went to BLOQS in January, great space but pretty damn expensive. You have to pay I think £70 for an induction then it’s £25 an hour. A word of warning too, if you’ve built your project in inkscape it might not translate over to their software. They use CoralDraw to send the job to the JobControl which, despite being a trotec laser, is very different to the one we have (but still quite easy to get the hang of). Adobe illustrator seemed to translate well, I think the issue with inkscape was I’d used the eraser and clipping masks to remove lines but that isn’t read properly in Adobe illustrator or CoralDraw.

The laser is massive though and the space is really nice, just a bit in the middle of nowhere!

Hope that helps @Elizabeth99

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As for LHS… they hold space inductions on Wednesdays starting at 7pm (no charge). Get inducted and I’m sure you’ll bump into someone who’ll help you with Lasercutting there.

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@directors @lasertechs could we have an update on what is happening here please.

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Hey All, Sorry for the delay in updating you and likewise a big apologies to all laser users for the recent outage. It was caused by someone over tightening the thumb screws that secure the primary lens into the head which caused them to strip, thus no longer being able to safely secure the mirror into the head.

As per all my recent posts about the laser, it is a very highly calibrated and delicate machine, and all user accessible parts like the mirror and lens are designed to be accessible WITHOUT the use of any tools. There is a very particular protocol that must be followed every time you start and finish a cutting job, and if any users aren’t clear on this please feel free to reach out and I will happily walk you though it.

However we have a fix inbound and with any luck, the laser will be back online early this coming week. Stay tuned for updates, The other techs and I will be in the space this evening/tomorrow eve.

In other news, we have some very very exciting additions to the laser department inbound very soon. Can’t say precisely what yet but believe me we are extremely excited!

Thanks to all @laserusers for your patience recently, believe me we are all desperate to get the machine back online and will have a proper update very soon.

Thanks! - The laser techs

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Thanks @charlesmein and all the @lasertechs, fully understand this hasn’t been easy but really appreciate your work getting this machine back online and looking forward to these new additions!

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