I've been having this idea for a while, but at this time I am really stuck, most lasers I've seen don't really have a really small focus , and the higher power ones are really expensive. I was thinking there are laser diodes out there in the 300 to 500 mW range and well there are two problems they mostly make a line not a dot, and two power is kinda weak.
was thinking 300 mW red laser should be enough to etch paint if I can focus the thing to a really tiny dot, this would be at a fixed distance that would never change.
#2 a lens or two to reconvert the line into a more focused dot would be cool. When I was a kid we experimented with different types of lenses, for example you could use a magnifying glass to focus the sun into a smaller dot and if it hit a different type of lens the then focused dot could be converted into a stronger beam that was parallel and could travel for a while (theoretically indefinitely if there is no obstruction, and then you could use another lens to focus that beam down even further.
we did this stuff for physics classes. I don't remember the lenses used but I do know there were concave and convex lenses some with one flat side that we used in those experiments any body here experiment in doing something like this with a laser? i.e using a 1 axis lens to convert the line into a dot and the use another lens to make it go from focusing back to parallel and then maybe use another lens later?
does anyone even make lenses that would be suitable for this that could be gotten at a decent price to experiment or does anyone remember sources of parts that could be slaughtered?
terramir
was thinking 300 mW red laser should be enough to etch paint if I can focus the thing to a really tiny dot, this would be at a fixed distance that would never change.
#2 a lens or two to reconvert the line into a more focused dot would be cool. When I was a kid we experimented with different types of lenses, for example you could use a magnifying glass to focus the sun into a smaller dot and if it hit a different type of lens the then focused dot could be converted into a stronger beam that was parallel and could travel for a while (theoretically indefinitely if there is no obstruction, and then you could use another lens to focus that beam down even further.
we did this stuff for physics classes. I don't remember the lenses used but I do know there were concave and convex lenses some with one flat side that we used in those experiments any body here experiment in doing something like this with a laser? i.e using a 1 axis lens to convert the line into a dot and the use another lens to make it go from focusing back to parallel and then maybe use another lens later?
does anyone even make lenses that would be suitable for this that could be gotten at a decent price to experiment or does anyone remember sources of parts that could be slaughtered?
terramir
