Community maintenance rhythm, alongside the official schedule.
Every session
- Vacuum the bed and the offcut tray. Debris under the material is a fire risk and it wrecks flatness.
- Glance at the protective lens. Hold it against white paper if you're not sure.
Weekly (or every 10 hours)
- Clean the protective lens properly with IPA and a lens wipe. This is the single highest-value maintenance job on any laser — a barely visible haze costs 20–30% of your power.
- Clean the exhaust fan and air assist nozzle. Blocked nozzle equals smoke in the beam path equals apparent power loss.
- Wipe the rails and check for debris in the belts.
Monthly
- Check module mounting bolts are snug. They settle, and a loose mount shows up as cuts that fail on one side of the bed.
- Re-level the bed and re-run a focus ramp test on your usual material. Compare against the tile from last time.
- Check the filter/extraction. A saturated carbon filter is a fan with extra steps.
Keep a log
Date, hours, what you cleaned or replaced. When output drifts, a log turns "I think it's getting weaker" into "the lens is 40 hours old and the last three tiles are getting fainter".
LaserPecker publish their own documentation on this topic — worth reading alongside these community notes.
Official article