Laser Equipment Winter Maintenance Tips

In the winter, the temperature is declining. At this time, we should not only warming ourselves, but also do freeze protection for laser machines to ensure the lifetime of the equipment and reduce the risk cost.

As we all know, liquids have a “freezing point”. When the temperature of the liquid is lower than this “freezing point” temperature, it will solidify to form a solid, while the deionized water or distilled water will become larger in volume during solidification, which will “break” the glass laser tube and Sealed connection. In order to avoid the damage of the laser tube, the output head, and the water chiller caused by the solidification of the cooling liquid, we can solve it from the following three aspects:

Method 1

In order to ensure that the laser equipment in the environment will not be out of power, can not shut down the water chiller. At the same time, for the sake of energy saving, please adjust the temperature of the low temperature and normal temperature water to 5 ~ 10 ℃ to ensure that the cooling liquid is in a circulating state and the temperature is not lower than the freezing point.

Method 2

After the operation, the operator can empty the coolant  in the laser and the water chiller. (This method is tedious, it increases the workload, and there are cases where the staff forgets to empty and causes damage.)

Method 3

When use of the environment is often powered down and does not have the conditions to empty the coolant every day, antifreeze must be used. The base liquid of antifreeze is generally composed of alcohols and water, which requires high boiling point and flash point, high specific heat and conduction ability, low temperature viscosity, not easy to foam, not corrosive to metal parts, rubber hoses, etc. When selecting or preparing antifreeze, its freezing point should be about 5 ℃ lower than the minimum temperature of the use environment.

Use the special antifreeze instead of ethanol, glass water, etc. If the special antifreeze are not convenient to buy, you can also buy large bottled car antifreeze without adding water in a regular gas station or regular supply store for laser tube water cooling system.

Any antifreeze solution cannot completely replace deionized water and cannot be used for a long time throughout the year. After winter, the pipes must be cleaned with deionized water or distilled water, and the use of deionized water or distilled water as a coolant should be restored.

NOTES

(1) When the outside temperature is ≥5 ℃, confirm that there is no freezing, and you can directly adjust it to the startup state;

(2) When the outside temperature is less than 5 ℃, Please add cooling water and leave for a period of time, or use a warm air device to blow the internal pipes of the chiller for a period of time, confirm that there is no freezing, then turn on the device;

(3) Regardless of the working mode of the water chiller, the machine tool and laser (low voltage) need to be turned on to maintain water circulation and other auxiliary equipment can be turned off;

(4) If it has not been used for a long time, when the laser and chiller are started after adding water, if water flow alarm. Please use the exhaust hole of the pump to exhaust the water cycle, or restart the pump multiple times at 10-20 second intervals ;

(5) If the machine is stopped for a long time, the water tank should be emptied, and make deep clean air emptying processing.Simultaneously emptying the water pump and the water chiller filter.

 

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