I keep hearing arcing on my K40 laser cutter

[rcx132]

Every so often, once in 15 min, I hear an arc jump to ground when running my K40 laser cutter. I'm now servicing the laser cutter as I messed up the mirrors, didn't clean them, dusty workshop, dirt got baked onto the mirrors, now they're junk.

I've inspected the wiring, opened the power supply and cant see any evidence of arcing.

Do you know if this model laser cutter has any known arc points ?

The cutter has good grounding. After buying it I had to rebuild it due to very poor assembly.

THANK YOU.

 

[voipio]

If there's dust in the laser housing, or its circuitry, then that's a potential cause, since the dust will provide a conductive path, effectively shortening the air gaps between high voltage points.

 

[Johnnybravo]

Probably the connection between the power supply and the tube itself

 

[rcx132]

I might have found the problem. When I installed the ammeter on the earth side, I only thought about the current and used the same thickness of wire as the laser came with. But I didn't think about the voltage. I've now replaced the wire with high voltage silicone wire.

The laser tube came with very thick wire on the positive side and normal-looking wire on the earth side. However, it should still be 600v wire on the earth side (says ChatGPT).