Need laser for toast

Hi guys,

This is my first post. I'm researching the feasibility of building my own laser engraver to make an image onto toast. What I found out so far is that since toast is an organic material, we need to have a blue or violet laser for it to be able to absorb the light. What I am confused about is the power of the laser. What min power laser do you guys recommend and what cost range should I be looking at? Is it possible for me to use a blu ray laser? And is it cheaper to build my own laser with a diode and driver rather than buying the whole thing?

I've seen this done with CNC 40WATT CO2 Lasers. It would take hours to do it with any visible spectrum low wattage diode based laser.

A barebones 40W CO2 laser costs less than $400, if you can provide the CNC aspect.

Well if you want to buy something that can do it its called a 40W co2 laser engraver.
They are sold on ebay for under 650$.
Thats the best option.
Else your getting into CNC and it can be done but theres alot more reasaerch to be done.

Laser toast. Now thats original.

is it TJ? IS IT?

Well I am trying to build my own toaster device/laser cutter. I am an engineering student looking into the feasibility of this project, although I am on a budget. If anyone in the SF bayarea is willing to lend a laser for a few months, that would be appreciated!

@ Tech_Junkie: Is that sarcasm? I did come up with the idea myself although it does appear that it has been done after researching it, although I am trying to build my own device with the bare minimum powered laser.

I guess its not an original idea. My bad.

No sarcasm, I just thought it was funny.

Seriously though, good luck finding someone who will lend you a laser to burn toast for a month. But hey, I never knew of laser toast, so you never know.

ChairmanMeow said:

Well I am trying to build my own toaster device/laser cutter. I am an engineering student looking into the feasibility of this project, although I am on a budget. If anyone in the SF bayarea is willing to lend a laser for a few months, that would be appreciated!

@ Tech_Junkie: Is that sarcasm? I did come up with the idea myself although it does appear that it has been done after researching it, although I am trying to build my own device with the bare minimum powered laser.

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haha I don't think anyone will voluntarily "LEND" his/her laser... There have been some unpleasant cases with such "lendings"

EDIT: haha TJ beat me to it ^^

1W of 445nm will burn toast. Probably not very quickly, but it will. CO2 is the way to do if you're looking at mass production (Of laser burnt toast?).

I hope this isn't one of those ways of making $9001 on eBay by selling a piece of toast with an image burnt onto it

Things said:

I hope this isn't one of those ways of making $9001 on eBay by selling a piece of toast with an image burnt onto it

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Are you saying my Erik Estrada toast is FAKE!?!?!?!?



I paid $2000 for this, and you say this is laser toast??? WTF

Tech_Junkie said:

Are you saying my Erik Estrada toast is FAKE!?!?!?!?

I paid $2000 for this, and you say this is laser toast??? WTF

Click to expand...

:crackup::crackup: ahaha nice one :beer:

You mentioned that a 1W 445nm laser could burn toast. What do you estimate the time it would take to toast that image of Erik Estrada mentioned above? What do you think is the minimum CO2 laser that would burn toast and the cost of it?

And I have no intentions of selling toast on ebay, although it would make my breakfast more interesting.

Cyberdog, a shop located over here, sells toasters with, in addition to the normal heating elements, a metal plate in the shape of a skull & crossbones which. I think the plate protects one section of the toast from heat, so you end up with a pale skull & crossbones in the middle. If you're trying to construct something which will imprint a single image over and over, that's probably a better way to go.

If you were to use a 445nm laser, it would only be good for drawing outlines, not filling in areas. The above photograph would take days.

Hey Chairman, I want to put something into perspective for you. Have you looked at the wattage rating of your toaster? The typical toaster operates at about 1200W. Even then, it takes about 30 seconds to a minute for your toaster to toast the bread into something we'd regard as "toast." Sure, that's spread over two slices of bread, but even so, it's quite a bit of pure heat power.

Now look at your 1W laser: it barely melts black plastic quickly. Now imagine trying to burn white bread that is still somewhat moist, like you'd have from a normal loaf. It just ain't going to happen in any reasonable timeframe.

Now for a CO2 Laser, sure, maybe you can concentrate enough energy onto a spot to cause it to burn, but CO2 lasers just aren't that cool to watch (it's just invisible heat), and are pretty dangerous too if you're thinking in terms of "toast." Look up the average CO2 laser system and see what it involves, and costs. Something like a 40W system is actually pretty cheap per-watt, but takes a bit of setup and precaution. They're industrial machines, not toasters. It's like using a mill to whip up milk for your coffee. You'll probably find it more cool to "toast" images into wood or metal instead, not just burn up your toast, smoke up the room, and leave crumbs in your workshop.

I think it COULD work if the toast is ALREADY toasted. If you use a multiwatt IR Lab style unit(4-8watt) WITH some focusing optics. You would have to make your own pneumatic gantry system, that sits over the toast and moves slowly. It may take a little bit of time to burn the toast, but I bet you could get some results from that.

We built a simple pneumatic gantry PLC controlled robot in engineering tech back in high school. Make the frame out of 80/20 aluminum. You would need to know some sort of programing language. C++ Prologix

I wish I had some bread to test my theory with. It might work better with wheat too.

It's been done before, a LOT: