question about the coolant--antifreeze

[stan kern]

I came across and article on rabbit laser's that mentioned you should not use a lot of antifreeze in the cooler as the colour yellow
cuts the tube power , the coolant should be close to clear, just possibly a hint of antifreeze.
I know mine is quite dosed up and is a greenish yellow possibly 50/50
Anyone have further info

[Junior hall]

I have used straight Ethelyn glycol which is the main ingredient in antifreeze I got this from Dynalene web site is www.dynalene.com phone number 1877 244 5525. It is clear i put half a cup into the chiller and have not had any problems Done this the year of 2014 in November

[stan kern]

that might be the right way to go ,at least its clear

[Jerome Stanek]

I use the pink RV stuff and have not found it to effect my power. The beam doesn't have to penetrate the liquid.

[Ron Gosnell]

Interesting discussion

I didn't know the beam was shot through the fluid.

Gozzie

[Bill George]

Interesting discussion

I didn't know the beam was shot through the fluid.

Gozzie

Its not, and on the Chinese laser mfg website it says to use anti freeze when subject to freezing. I did in mine, used the global anti freeze good for all systems. Used a very light mixture not the 1/2 and 1/2 mix, but more like 25%. It had the standard corrosion inhibitors and I question the use of pure ethylene glycol without inhibitors. I never lost power, never blew up my machine in fact it worked fine.

[Rich Harman]

... the colour yellow
cuts the tube power , the coolant should be close to clear, just possibly a hint of antifreeze.

The beam does not interact with the coolant, any more than your car's coolant interacts with combustion. I'd really like to know why they think that yellow coolant will make the tube less powerful.

[Mark Sipes]

Rabbit recommends the use of an additive.

" It is typical for us to use a mixture of glycol (or Antifreeze) and water as the coolant fluid."

nothing about color or mixture%.

.

[Bill George]

Rabbit recommends the use of an additive.

" It is typical for us to use a mixture of glycol (or Antifreeze) and water as the coolant fluid."

nothing about color or mixture%.

.

I think it was Ray from Rabbit USA who told his customers using anti freeze would void the warranty on his machines.

[Dave Sheldrake]

My limited experience of this is to do with the anti freeze (in particular coloured stuff) being conductive, a certain degree of the plasma power will be drawn to the walls of the resonator resulting in a loss of stability and output power. It seems to depend on just how conductive you make the coolant.

I tried the lime green fluorescent stuff in one of mine just to see what would happen and lost about 20% of the power, that said I didn't get the same experience with clear EG being added....

Jury is still out though, I've seen it happen personally but seeing it and deciding on the factual cause are two different things without further testing and evaluation. To be a decent theory it has to be both repeatable and testable....

[Ernie Balch]

Ray had me add a small amount of antifreeze to my chiller. The color is a faint yellow. It has been fine for the past 3+ years. I just went through my first tube change and the solution looks like new.

[Bill George]

Those of us here in the North country really don't have too many choices. Power goes off because of an ice or snow storm for a couple days it gets pretty cold. Yes it does happen. I can keep the house above freezing if I am here, not in Florida. But my shop will freeze. Tube freezes if its water in the system.

[stan kern]

this was the article i found with the rabbit ,the article was about alignment

"Step 4 - Inspect that the laser beam is going to hit the first mirror as the beam exits the laser tube. It would be difficult to adjust if the beam doesn't even hit the first mirror. (The coolant should only have about 1 cup of anti-freeze in it with the rest of the coolant being de-ionized water. The laser tube in this picture has far too much antifreeze in the mix. The coolant should be clear with only a hint of color to show some antifreeze is present.)
I know mine is not clear

[Dave Sheldrake]

Pretty much Stan, de-ionized is non conductive...the more anti freeze that is added the lower the resistance of the coolant...

Remember path of least resistance etc etc...if that happens to be through the resonator wall into the coolant you will have problems.

[Ron Gosnell]

Could be a cheap way of depowering a high power laser for better engraving if it wouldn't damage the tube.