On the subject of the laser cutter not working, I was using it on Thursday night when it went doolally.
I was halfway through a job cutting 6mm acrylic when instead of cutting a circle as planned it went off on a jagged line and then started juddering at the end of the run as if it was trying to do lots of small details.
I stopped the job, then went through various attempts to get it back on-line by cycling the power, with no luck - it always got stuck at the machine initialisation stage.
Shortly before the last job the lid had closed with a bit of a bang - dropped the last few inches. Could it be possible that something had been loose and is now out on one of the connectors? I had a quick look for anything obvious but most of the control boards are covered so I couldn't see them.
I don't think I did anything else that might have caused a problem...