Troubleshooting the VLS

Gone are the days of "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
Time for some HARD TO THE CORE TROUBLESHOOTING.

The fact that the laser cutter was able to produce nice clean cuts on Day 1 leads me to believe that "something" has occurred over time.
I attribute any of the following to be a cause:

• We are all collectively digitally untalented when using the console
• Nullified - we're successful in operating the ILS + good cuts in the early days
• 
  

First proper job (eg: not just a test square) after cleaning the third aperture yielded VERY impressive results!
The cut was the cleanest I've ever seen after day 1 (installation) and although the cut didn't cut through all the way (DSC_1763.jpg), it was all i'd ever ask for. With a 90% cut rate, I'm happy.

It seems WHSmith brown boxboard yields diminishing returns (see books 4-7). Where book 4's cut is marginally better than book 7.

HOWEVER, grey boxboard seems quite unaffected at settings: (while cutting sample Kerfs (Booby ones)

• Material: Matboard
• TH: 2.6mm
• Power: 100%
• Speed 15%
• PPi: 500
• Throughput: Max

EDIT:

* After cutting the DIrectional Arrow sample Kerf, it seems the problem is not getting "much" better. I feel the only reason the booby cuts were more successful was because of a slower speed due to the distance travelled for the curve or the fact that I didn't run the command OVERKILL in autoCAD and the laser was running the paths twice over.
** The only other possibility is all the lenses are fogging up once again requiring clean up - something I'll do next time.