Fiber laser source life span

We picked up an Epilog Fibermark 24 30 watt laser in the summer of 2018 and it had been doing great up until now. We only run it on average 1hour/ week. Recently we started having issues with the mark being faint and needing an extra pass or two to be acceptable. However it is now at the point that you can't see the mark no matter what we do.

I contacted Epilog and after the typical "did you change this setting, adjust the focus, clean the lenses, yada yada", they said the laser source is showing signs that it is failing and will need to be replaced. I asked what the life span should be and they replied "Lasers typically have a 3-5 year life span depending on use. But it is actually detrimental for lasers to sit dormant for long periods of time because the molecules in the laser sources tend to weaken."

I don't know much about the workings of lasers, but this sounds like some bs to me. Can anyone tell me if this is true or if they're just slinging some crap? If it is true, is there anyway to increase the life span without just randomly marking stuff every week?

Thanks!

I don't know about marking lasers but higher powered fiber lasers in the 3-10 kw range have a life expectancy of 50-100K hours of beam time. Fiber lasers use an optical fiber doped with rare-earth elements such as ytterbium to generate the beam. This is a solidstate process that should not change over time.

And detrimental to sit idle...??? I think you're being fed Bovine Scatology. I've never heard that!

Like any electronics, they can last for miliseconds to months. it all depends.

Thanks for the confirmation Chip. After talking with another tech, he said the guy was full of it and he must have been thinking this was a CO2 laser. The tech I'm talking to now is pretty baffled as he said what we're experiencing is pretty rare and he hasn't seen that on such a new machine. So he's going to see if he can't get us a deal on a new laser source since we're only a few months out of warranty.

Cheers!