Sometimes there is a need to clean your tube, you may have got algae growth or mineral deposits inside the tube.
Empty your tank, fill it with tap water and empty it.
Buy a couple of litres vinegar and do a 50-50 mix with cold tap water and start the pump and let it run trough your system over night, check the status next day and run it more if needed.
Repeat if needed, and go with a 75-25 mix if the first didnt do any change.
You do not need much, it´s better to have less collant when cleaning, more effective. Loop+tube is about 1.5 litres. Try with 2L to keep the pump submerged.
Do not use your laser with this mix in the tank, not likely bad but to be on the safe side.
Be careful with vinegar or other additives or stronger fluids to clean your tube if you run it for longer periods. It may affect plastic, rubber and metal parts in your water loop and pump.
Thanks to Akos Balog for mentioning this!
Hi, I would like to ask you about my problem with cleaning of my laser tube. I bought my laser (I´m second owner) from a guy who didn´t use distilled water. Now I want to clean the laser tube and rubber pipes from a sediments. I tried mix 50-50 water and vinegar for four-five hours but still there are some pieces of slimy sediments inside the tube. Do you have any ideas how to clean this? Can I try baking soda for the cleaning? Maybe it has more cleaning power (but I don´t know).
Thanks, Mark
You can experiment with stronger stuff if you want. The important thing is to run it with vinegar and water to rinse out everytning after you are done.
I have used sodium hydroxide for a really dirty tube, just make sure you are not sealing the tube and use it in a well ventilated area.
Baking soda and even salt might work too.
If you mix something up, make sure its not flammable or expands quick with gasses, mix it before adding to the tube so you dont get a explosion inside the tube by expanding gasses.
what type of vinegar is best white or distilled malt vinegar
Does not matter much, it´s used to clean the tube and you rinse it with distilled water after so keep it to white to prevent any oils or additives coming in to the loop. I have only tried regular white vinegar myself.
Not a problem as such just some info I cannot find out about the K40.
Does the laser tube fill up totally with water or it just the inner part of the laser tube / outer part of the laser tube?
There is often three chambers in the laser tube, the water goes in the smaller tube – and inside that one is one even smaller were the beam is. The bigger part of the tube does not contain water, if yours does you have a crack.
Should I care that air is not 100% evacuated from the ends of the laser tube, even when the water is running at full flow through it? If so, how would you recommend I remove the air? All the water drains into the bucket when I turn off the water-pump, so it would need to be something that is easy to accomplish, if at all.
Bubbles can cause hot spots in the glass and crack it, so i would suggest you try to evacuate the air from the tube. You can do it by lifting the machine in one end tilting it and running the pump at the same time. Or add a few drops of dish soap to lower the surface tension so the bubbles cannot form at all, use something without perfume or additives, often labeled ECO soap and similar, 3-4-5 drops per 10L is often enough, let it circulate 10min before checking it and running the laser.
The vinegar does a crack job at clearing up any brass fittings in the system. The warmer the water is, the better the effect.
Be careful with vinegar and the rubber parts of the pump (feet, and the small rubber part at the axis). It will destroy the rubber parts very fast. (overnight is enough)
Thank you! I have added a little warning about vinegar in the article!