Tag Archives: routine laser maintenance

Industrial Laser Shop Safety for Non-Laser Operators and “Tourists”: Videos

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Laser Maintenance Group / Innovative Laser & Design owner Scott Kiser demonstrates "sound shock" and gas venting in his Industrial laser shop safety video series.
Venting Gas: Laser Shop Safety includes preparing for sound shock surprises

If you own and operate a company that uses laser systems, you may not be concerned about industrial laser shop safety for non-laser operators who work at or visit your firm.

You should be! Most folks can’t operate industrial lasers. In fact, most visitors — even your administrative and management employees — may not think about industrial laser system and shop safety. It’s your job to protect them!

In this video series, Laser Maintenance Group / Innovative Laser & Design owner Scott Kiser, aka “Laser Service Guy“, gives safety tips for non-laser operators (and tourists and tour guides) to keep safe around legacy CO2 laser systems. Scott gives practical safety tips as he walks you through his CO2 industrial laser system shop, Innovative Laser & Design.

Laser Shop Safety Video Series:

The full 8+ minute laser safety overview video is divided into smaller segments. The series gives advice to company owners who use industrial laser systems, as well as safety tips for people who might occasionally be around industrial lasers. Each video focuses on a different aspect of laser system and shop safety. View those videos on the Laser Service Guy / Innovative Laser YouTube channel, or click on the links.

Other Laser System Safety Videos

Kiser “Laser Service Guy” also created other laser system safety videos for laser operators and “tourists”.

Laser Maintenance Group Consulting Services

Do you want a shop and laser system safety review? Would you like your work flow to be more cost effective and work/time/effort/resource efficient? Do you and your employees need industrial laser system maintenance, operations or safety training? Do you have other industrial laser system consulting needs? Contact Scott Kiser at LaserSolutions@Comcast.net, or call 423-593-7206.

Laser Maintenance Group, LLC and Innovative Laser & Design are USA Veteran-owned Small Businesses in LaFayette, Georgia, USA.

Industrial Laser Service from Laser Maintenance Group

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At Laser Maintenance Group (LMG), our industrial laser service and maintenance visits fall into three categories: Routine, Preventative, and Corrective. Almost every service call we make has components of each in it. However, there is a preference as to which type of visit we make … for both of us.

Routine laser maintenance:

Laser maintenance visits schedules LMG professionals to work on your laser centers according to a regular time interval. The suggested time is based on manufacturers’ recommendations, coupled with our experience (nearly 30 years) servicing CO2 laser systems. A prescribed set of tasks is completed that allow us to inspect the laser center as we go. In fact, LMG offers routine laser service as well as other packages, when we come out on a scheduled, periodic basis, according to the number of hours you run your laser centers.

Preventative laser service:

When laser service experts at LMG see a performance problem during routine laser maintenance, we do immediate, preventative laser service. These visits also happen our customer calls us and says their laser system seems to not function as well as usual, or differently than normal.

Close contact and cooperation with you, our customers, is vital to keeping your lasers running efficiently. When we discover laser performance issues, we will show and explain the problem to you. With your permission, we will fix the issue immediately, or make arrangements to get it repaired before it damages the laser center or, worse yet, causes it to fail. We prevent catastrophic laser failures.

Corrective laser service:

The aftermath of a near disaster with a laser-cutting machine - Industrial laser service from LMG can prevent these laser problems

When sometime breaks on the laser system and it becomes non-operational, corrective laser service is the work LMG does to return your laser center to full functionality. These situations don’t just mean that your company loses use of a laser until it can be repaired. Unfortunately, waiting until something breaks means it’s probably going to be more expensive and time consuming to fix now, than had you done routine maintenance or preventative service months ago. These problems can also lead to catastrophic laser failure, which can be dangerous to equipment and employees.

An ounce of prevention ….

LMG knows that laser components sometimes simply fail because of age, accidents, use (or misuse). However, 90% of the time, this type of laser service is avoided by doing routine and preventative maintenance.

The laser service professionals at LMG want to avoid doing corrective laser service if at all possible. They would prefer to do routine laser maintenance, on a scheduled basis. Why? Let’s face it: Corrective laser service not only disrupts your manufacturing flow and your schedule. It severely impacts our calendar. We prefer to act rather than react, to step in and eliminate the problem before it bites both of us. Murphy’s law is crystal clear on when the problem will shut your laser down: At the worst possible time. Every time!

Scheduled Laser Maintenance Case Study: A Win/Win

Here’s an example: Our lead laser service technician, “Laser Service Guy” Scott Kiser, is on the road doing routine maintenance on two Cincinnati lasers on the Gulf Coast. He’ll be there Tuesday and Wednesday. Next, he has a scheduled a routine maintenance call for a company in central Georgia. He’ll do that Thursday, which will let him head home to Northwest Georgia on Friday. Based on his schedule, everything looks great.

But then, on Tuesday, as he’s leaving the Gulf Coast, he gets a call from a client in Oklahoma. The manufacturer has a serious problem with their laser. Something went very wrong. The techs had to shut it down, and management desperately needs it to be up and running before the weekend so they can cut the parts they’ve promised to deliver by Monday.

Despite the fact that the emergency laser service call means extra work (and at a higher emergency rate), it’s not something we at LMG want to do. It costs time just to get there from so far away. It inconveniences our other customers. It’s not the best use of our time. And it is not good for the company making that emergency call. (In fact, the only happy company in this scenario is the one on the Gulf Coast that Scott just left. The one that planned ahead and did their routine laser maintenance on time!

Types of Industrial Laser Services from LMG: An Analogy:

Routine industrial laser maintenance is the sticker in your window reminding you to do the oil change, so you will go in every 3,000 miles and have your car serviced.

Preventative industrial laser service is the yellow check engine light, or the mechanic telling you that you need to get something fixed right away … and they can do it for you then.

Corrective industrial laser service is the red check engine light. You have to pull over on the side of the freeway, call a tow truck, and hope you can find someone to fix your car so you can continue.

Remember this truth: As with everything, the more routine an industrial laser service call is, the less it typically costs.

Laser Problems: Avoidable or Unpreventable

There are just two types of problems in this world: Unpreventable and Avoidable. This applies to everything, not just laser service or maintenance. It ranges from physics to medicine, from maintenance (goooood) to former spouses (baaaaaad!). It applies to everything.

No one can defend against unpreventable problems. For example: A lightning strike fries your computer. There is no amount of routine or preventative service that can stop that.

But why fight with both problems if you can eliminate the preventable ones? Your competitor is in the same boat as you, but what an advantage you will have if you are proactive rather than reactive. Scheduling routine maintenance, asking questions when things don’t seem right, fixing potential problems as they are discovered: All these actions help eliminate the preventable side of the equation.

We at LMG are on your side. We will always be part of your industrial laser service solution. We want to be part of your laser service problem prevention.

LMG has both maintenance and industrial laser service packages. Contact us to find out about them, and get on our schedule. We can help you avoid serious industrial laser service problems that could adversely impact your production and your business.

With nearly 3 decades of industrial laser service experience, LMG’s motto is simple:

“The Performance of Your Laser is
a Reflection of the Work We Do!“

Contact Laser Maintenance Group for a Quote

Don’t wait until your high-performance industrial laser center fails. Schedule your laser maintenance visits now with LMG Founder and Chief Technology Consultant Scott Kiser (aka “The Laser Service Guy”) directly at 423-593-7206, or email:  LaserSolutions@Comcast.net.

If you need steel or other metal parts cut for your industrial and manufacturing production lines, visit LMG’s affiliate company: InnovativeLaserCutting.com

Laser Shut Down Prevents Catastrophic Breakdown

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We at Laser Maintenance Group encourage our customers to do routine laser maintenance. Why? We’d rather catch a problem before it becomes a catastrophic breakdown. Still, sometimes people forget. Or they’re too busy. Or … they come up with any number of excuses. And things break. In this post, IF you insist on pushing the limits, running your machine “just a little while more” before maintenance, I’ll show what one company did to prevent a catastrophic breakdown.

In this case study, the laser-owning company didn’t tighten a bolt on a shroud. Because of the laser system’s poor design, it was difficult to do. (Still, routine laser maintenance — such as our laser techs here at LMG do — would have caught and fixed the problem.)

The bolt wiggled loose. The laser beam fried the bolt, sending debris into the output coupler. The coupler nearly cracked all the way through, which would have led to a catastrophic breakdown. The beam also reflected away from its normal path, cutting a water hose. That spewed liquid into a number of sensitive electrical components.

The misguided laser beam also went into the copper tip. It super-heated the tip, fusing the opening almost completely shut. With all this laser energy going in all the wrong directions, things were ripe for a catastrophic breakdown.

Shut Down Prevents Catastrophic Breakdown

Despite their mistake in not getting routine laser maintenance, the laser operators responded correctly in this emergency situation. When they saw the laser wasn’t cutting, they shut down the machine. That simple action prevented a catastrophic breakdown.

So many times I see companies where the laser isn’t working quite right. Something is off. Things smell, look, sound or feel “funny”. They know something is wrong. But they keep going. They keep trying to make it work. They adjust a few minor things. They accept that the laser is going slower … and slower … and slower. They don’t perform laser service. And a catastrophic breakdown happens.

In this case, the laser operators simply shut down the laser. They could see it wasn’t cutting. They smelled the rubber hose burning. They knew something was wrong. They shut down their laser system … unlike these folks, who took a video of their failing laser cutting machine bellows:

An example of what NOT to do: Don’t take a video of a disaster waiting to happen!

Are you getting the message? “Shut Down to Prevent Catastrophic Breakdown!”

When they called LMG for laser service and repair, I was able to come out and repair the machine fairly quickly. They were only off-line for a couple of days. The parts that needed to be replaced were not that major or expensive. It could have been much, much worse. So, in that regard, they did the right thing. HOWEVER …

Scheduled, Routine Laser Maintenance And Service Is Always Cheaper Than Catastrophic Breakdown

Believe it or not, we at Laser Maintenance Group would rather do routine laser maintenance / laser service than emergency laser repair caused by catastrophic breakdown. It’s for purely selfish reasons:

  • Routine laser maintenance lets us schedule our out-of-office trips
  • Laser service usually takes less time
  • Maintenance is less of a crunch / panic mode
  • That makes the trips much less stressful
  • Even though maintenance and laser service visits bring in less money than repairing catastrophic breakdowns do, we’d rather save our customers time, effort and money
  • Maintenance is much less difficult and less dangerous than repairing and cleaning up the carnage of a catastrophic breakdown

How Often Should Routine Laser Maintenance Be Done?

For those reasons, and others, LMG encourages customers to schedule routine laser maintenance (here’s a video) on a regular basis. Most Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) recommend laser service / maintenance after approximately 800 to 1000 hours of operating time. In the case study mentioned earlier, the laser was being run for two shifts a day, totalling about 20 hours a day. As a result, their maintenance schedule should have been about every six weeks.

It wasn’t (and look what happened!)

Most machines actually run less than a full shift (because there is setup, loading and unloading, etc.) Typically we find that having a routine maintenance visit once every three to four months is enough. Again, it depends on how much you are running your laser. 800 hours to 1000 hours is a solid benchmark. (Go here to find out about LMG’s laser service packages.)

Trust the Laser Services Experts at LMG

To schedule laser service, including maintenance, analysis or repair visits, phone LMG at 423-593-7206 or email: lasersolutions@comcast.net. Our consulting technical support staff is on call to answer any questions you may have about your laser equipment.

Take care! 

Scott, the Laser Service Guy
LaserSolutions@Comcast.net
423-593-7206

To see this video — and others — on routine laser maintenance, laser operations tips, and other laser services we provide, check out the video on our Laser Service Guy / Innovative Laser YouTube channel … and please subscribe!)

Almost a catastrophic breakdown: The bolt on the laser shroud was loose. It caught the laser, which sent particles into the lens and cut a water hose. The beam super-heated the copper tip, fusing it shut. Fortunately, the laser operator did the smart thing: Shut Down Prevents Catastrophic Breakdown. Important Laser Service Rule
Laser Service Guy Scott Kiser