It’s tough waiting for something, when you’re excited about a project. A week and a half ago I sent off that email for quotation on the replacement parts to my local ULS rep. I know it’s only been a week and a half, but it feels like it’s been forever. I sent off a ping at the end of last week, and they replied that the parts guy was off that week, but he would get back to me early this week. So here we are at the end of this week, and I still haven’t heard anything. I got tied up with work today, so I didn’t get around to sending off another reminder email. I am disappointed in the delay, it seems as if they aren’t all that interested in my business. If I don’t hear back by Tues of next week, I’m going to contact ULS direct again, apprise them of the situation and see if they’ll quote me directly.
So I took a few minutes this weekend to give the chassis a quick bath to get off any soot and loose dirt to get a better idea of the condition. I managed to get a few pics too.
I took a few hours yesterday to give the unit a quick wipe-down to clean off any loose dirt, and take a few pictures now that my hand is feeling a bit better. Over the next few days I’ll be posting a review of the state of the various components. But first, I’ve had a couple of questions about the laser/power, so I thought I’d make a quick post about it.
As I prepare to have the chassis stripped of its current paint & rust coating, I’ve been thinking about how I should refinish it. The chassis itself is built like a tank out of heavy gauge welded steel. It needs some sort of protective coating, or it will just rust into nothing. My initial intention was to have it powder-coated, but now I’m having second thoughts.
Now that this project is officially a go, I need to source some replacement parts. So as a starting point I thought I’ll see what official replacement parts from ULS will cost, before I try to hack something together. So I put together a quick list based on my first impressions during the tear-down.
Had a little time after work today so I thought I’d try and test fire the laser as it working is pretty much the deciding factor on the fate of this project. After a bit of googling, I found a manual for a ULS OEM laser that contained the connector pin-out. I cut the wiring harness apart, separating out the links to the laser. I still want to use the original power supply if I can. So first thing I did was fire up the power supply, and was happy to see it was outputting at the desired 48V. Next I set up the laser aimed at a concrete block wall, with a piece of card stock as a target. Following the pin-out in the manual I found, I wired in the interlock safety loop with a key-switch, and then used a two way momentary switch attached to an external power supply to trigger the aiming visible red laser, and the CO2 burning laser. I re-applied power, and the laser fan spun-up making a terrible noise… sounds like a blade is hitting the guard, or a bearing is shot… either way, that will need to be replaced. Next I tested the visible laser, and was happy to find it working. [this was a bonus, I was not expecting an integrated visible pointing laser] Then I armed the laser by flipping the key to the safe position and tried firing the CO2 laser…. nothing. My heart sank, I thought perhaps this find was too good to be true.
Ouch my eye! 