Gerald out of order

[DaveBenji]

Arrived this morning to find that Gerald is not working. Its a long journey in the rain today. Is there no way to tell people about machines being out of order and save a journey and expense? Why did I receive a misleading confirmation email yesterday?

[zarino]

I am not an expert on this, but I assume the room/resource booking system has no automatic awareness of whether any particular room or piece of equipment is working at any given time.

Maybe there’s a way for a human to enable/disable bookings (or mark the laser as "booked out" for periods when we know it’s broken) but then you’re relying on another fallable human process – what happens when the person forgets? 🤷

If you’re in the space regularly, and you really don’t want any wasted trips, I’d suggest you subscribe to email notifications about all new issues on the front page of the Somebody Should Github repo:

That way, as soon as a laser cutter is reported as non-functional (or functional again, after a fix) you’ll get an email. Sadly you’ll also get a few other emails about other things, but it’s not that much. You’ll need to weigh up the inconvenience factor yourself.

[DaveBenji]

Done that. But, if the 'management' can cellotape an out of order on the top of Gerald they could bung out a couple of emails too?

[DaveBenji]

Is there any update on Gerald the laser cutter?

[JackiePease]

Is there any update on Gerald the laser cutter?

@magman2112 could you update this with what you did last night please

[DaveBenji]

Is there an update on the current state of Gerald? I'm booked in tomorrow to use him but would like to avoid a redundant journey if the machine continues to be out of order?

[magman2112]

I adjusted the mirror alignment on Gerald during Maker Night on Thursday and Gerald is back cutting again. I used it for a laser induction on Maker Night as well. There are still some alignment issues in the top right corner of Gerald, but that has been the case for months now

I’m not 100% happy with the kerf when cutting and despite cleaning the lens and mirrors the cutting speed needs to be 12-14 to cut 3mm ply. So I will leave this issue open till I can do some testing.

I would recommend doing some test cuts to check the required cutting speeds before committing to large projects on Gerald at present.

[DaveBenji]

Sorry but Gerald is not usable. I've been in early this morning so I could make lots if tests and avoid a parking charge if the machine is out of order. I've cut all over the bed with variable speeds and powers. In conclusion there is no consistency. The cutting bed has both hot and cold spots. You either get charcoal burn or somewhere between a cut and an etch. I found in cutting straight lines the y axis is much weaker than the x axis. Anyhow I can't afford to scrap my cutting materials so I've abandoned today's work. I'm not a technician so I don't know if I can help but I am willing to.

[DaveBenji]

Can we have an update on Gerald please?

[helicalbytes]

@DaveBenji There is an update on this here:
#1942 (comment)