by lasersafe1 » Tue Dec 11, 2012 2:23 pm
Thanks Ben, but your graph is for a brand new standard tube. If you actually run that tube at 20mA (as your graph implied you can for 40W) for a while or do PPI for a while, I'm betting it will no longer turn on at 3mA. Max running current for a 40W tube is 16-18mA. I'm of the camp that believes PPI is damaging tubes because it puts the overcurrent strike voltage on the tube. Some may claim that raster engraving is pretty much the same thing, but at least during raster you aren't running balls out 100%.