The UK summer didnt really turn up this year did it? That said, in previous years it's been pretty hot. I find that often people keep their machines in garages or warehouses. Places that are susceptible to extremes of heat.
This is a problem for co2 laser tubes. Laser tubes work best between 15-25 degrees C according to the manufacturers. Your lovely metal roof and uninsulated walls are soaking up all the heat in the summer. A lot of garage laser cutters either have a bucket of water as a cooler or a CW3000 'chiller'. That's fine for small machines like a 40 watt generally but at 60 watts and above things tend to get a bit hotter. That bucket of water and the CW3000 doesn't have any kind of refigerator in it. It can only chill to the ambient temperature of the room ( unless you keep giving that bucket of water some ice ). In the summer if your garage is getting to 30 degrees you have a problem. Signs of an overheating tube are the power will slowly drop off until the beam stops. The tube will also be at least very warm to touch. If this happens enough times then it will likely damage the tube. For this reason I recommend people buy a CW5200 chiller from somewhere like
Its an upgrade on the CW3000 chiller as it has an actual refrigerator in it. They aren't cheap but replacing a laser tube and fitting it is more expensive if they keep breaking.
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