40W CO2 Laser Photos

You know, You can get a Cornea transplant, but not a full retinal transplant? Not advocating lack of safety, but I would much rather have a messed cornea than retina. I would prefer neither though, obviously.

Toaster said:

You know, You can get a Cornea transplant, but not a full retinal transplant? Not advocating lack of safety, but I would much rather have a messed cornea than retina. I would prefer neither though, obviously.

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It costs $7,500 - $11,000.

Also, you have to get in line behind people who are losing their vision or are blind due to congenital disorders.

A corneal transplant for CO2 laser stupidity is hardly worth depriving a worthy recipient of vision.

-Trevor

Yes, I know, just saying it's fixable, whereas the Retinal injury is not. Just an FYI really. Like I said though, both are bad.

Has anyone tried cooling a CO2 laser with Fluorinert ?

I'm thinking about maybe replacing a fidgety chiller on a CNC system, and it occured to me that if it can live with 30C, then it might be worthwhile to use a liquid evaporation system, with a low boiling point refrigerant and a passively heat exchanged cooling tower.

Opinions?

Isn't that stuff shockingly expensive? I would think that plain water would work just as well. Why would a chiller be any more fidgety? The ones at my friend's shop have been trouble free, aside from having to clean out some filters and fans. They look a lot like a dorm refrigerator or window air conditioner inside.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, some fluorinated refrigerants are expensive. They are also entirely passive if you have a room which never gets hotter than the condensation point for the refrigerant, and that's the case this far north, so a small condensation tower does everything passively in closed loop operation without a recirculator and without maintenance.

A new chiller would probably not be fidgety like the old one, so it's an option, sure. Just wondering if it might be worth parting with some refrigerant to eliminate maintenance in the future. I believe a friend of the family still has a few cubic meters of recovered CFC available, so unless he's saving it for when the total ban on production and import from 2012 enters into effect, he'd probably be willing to part with a few liters of the stuff for a sixpack and some good cooking.

Mostly curious about whether it would do the job, though.

There are lots of different CFCs, R12 refrigerant is what was once used in most refrigeration equipment, it's a gas at atmospheric pressure. R22 is a HCFC used mostly in HVAC heat pumps and air conditioners. These days the HFC R134 is used in domestic refrigeration and automotive air conditioning, with R410 taking over the HVAC applications.

Fluorinert is not a CFC, but a fluorocarbon which is liquid at atmospheric pressure. I think that it is still available, but costs hundreds of dollars per gallon. My understanding was that it was used when the coolant had to be in direct contact with energized electrical components and deionized water was not good enough.

In this application, could you not just use water and pump that through a cooling tower? You would have to replenish the water as it evaporated to provide the cooling but it would still be fairly simple.

There's no need for such elaborate cooling systems. A simple radiator is all that is needed to cool small sealed tubes like these.

james:

My mistake about the fluorinert. You're right, fixing the water based chiller or just replacing it would indeed be a better idea. No point in adding hundreds of dollars worth of cooling fluids.

MarioMaster:

Will the tube be happy with the water at boiling temperature? It's an effective coolant near the evaporation point, certainly, so if the tube is happy with water condensating in a radiator, then yeah, that would of course be about as simple as it gets.

Certainly not. The coolant needs to be lower than 140F, and works better the cooler it is. I keep mine <90F.

If you cool it based on the heat of vaporization, you'll get bubbles which insulate. Won't you? (the tube is most often horizontal)

When I say a radiator I mean a hydronic radiator with circulating water flow. Like a PC water cooling radiator or a car heatercore.

How qbout putting the heater cire in font of. a small air conditiiner. those can be found for less then 100$ at a pawnshop. just a thought