To the Laser Cutters: Consider the Laser Cutter offline pending resolution.
I did a little laser cutting today. I admit it. Or, I tried to.
Part way through - the water bucket started rattling and making noises that were, um, concerning. Naturally, I investigated.
The end of the water pump/filter had come off. It, the filter, and a couple of the internal pieces were jostling around. The vibration of these plastic parts was making the noise. Indeed, the retaining clips on a couple of the internal pieces have broken off thus allowing it to fall apart.
I reassembled the water pump, flange, filter, cap, etc. I could not fix the retaining clips - but that should be addressed sometime. The pump now works without as much noise (and yes, water seems to be moving about). HOWEVER, I have not tried to laser cut pending this query.
Was the pump end intentionally dismantled? Or, should I continue? Any inputs from someone who has experienced this or assembled the pump/filter system in the first place? Minor issue or should this be resolved before resuming?
I think as long as the filter is in place and water is flowing that you should be good. I’ll investigate it later today. I plan on heading down around 1PM-2PM.
Is this the Eheim model 1250 water pump that came out my old (LOL) watercooled rig? That thing is ancient if so, I started building that rig ~2003 and that pump already had a lot of miles on it.
UPDATE
I went to Harbor Freight today and picked up a new submersible pump for the laser cutter. It’s a 620GPH/2PSI pump drawing a rated 0.58A. Swapped it out and did a test cut and it seems to be in perfect working order now. It looks like the impeller housing on the old pump became out-of-round and was vibrating pretty violently. I took a video for anyone interested. The important part is that the laser cutter is now fixed!
Thanks a lot for taking the initiative to do this. Considering the overall reliability of China Freight parts, what do you think about buying a second pump to keep on hand close to the laser? I keep two of all the china frieght stuff that I really depend on.
-D
The mechanism for this pump is pretty simple. It’s just an induction coil with a magnetic impeller. The plastic it’s made out of is pretty solid too. The only thing that could make this fail is if something got sucked into the impeller housing. But it has two filters to prevent something like that from happening. Honestly I’m fairly impressed with how sturdy it seems to be built. I also routed the power cable separately from the hoses so there’s less of a chance they’ll get yanked suddenly. I personally don’t think we need a backup, but I understand the logic in having one. If people think it’s a good idea I have no problem running and getting another one.