Playing with my new 40W laser

[Things]

Things' tube looks a little reddish to me.

Maybe mine is different, but it only appears as purple as in your pic in complete darkness

 

[bobhaha]

Dear Adrian,

Something I should've done with my tube back in the day was a little experiment.

1. Take block of dry ice (Or just buy it)
2. Place it in front of laser
3. Close the switch

Would this be the case of a CO2 emission wavelength being shot into a solid block of stuff that usually emits the wave? Would vaporization rates increase where the laser in incident? Could you suffocate if the vaporization rate increases? IDK

Let me know how it goes! :beer:

Sincerely,

-Tyler

That's a pretty cool experiment (excuse the pun). Might try that out! Could cause some unusual results.

 

[AUS]

You can't beat a CO2 for "bang for buck".
I want one! More money!

I'm looking for a cheap Ruby or YAG now to see if i can punch some holes in razor blades..

I'm not sure what type of mirrors you have on it but i wonder if you could shoot a HeNe down the middle or very close to it for aiming? Probably not if they were Cu or Au but might work on ZnSe or salt optics?

 

[bobhaha]

Not too sure what optics it's using... looks like Au, but can't be sure. I've tried already to get something to pass... but that's a no go.

I'll have to think of a way to splice the dot in at a later date. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

 

[Cyparagon]

I use a couple of teeny ~3mW modules glued to either side of the OC. This creates 2 red dots, and I know the IR dot will be directly between them.

 

[DashApple]

If The OC Looks like a dark colour its probably germanium type OC and the HR Is Gold Plated Metal .

To Combine red 650 - 660nm and 10.6um You need a Dichro i Belive they are made of ZnSe they lurk around on ebay sometimes

 

[bobhaha]

I use a couple of teeny ~3mW modules glued to either side of the OC. This creates 2 red dots, and I know the IR dot will be directly between them.

Hmm that might work... But not going to give me the accuracy I need for use in a laser cutter.

 

[Things]

Only way to do it properly for a laser cutter is with a ZnSe combiner. I was considering one for mine, but they are mega expensive at around $90. Would save a lot of time and effort (and many burns to yourself) during alignment though.

 

[Cyparagon]

You can also get away with a plain-old ZnSe window as a dicro. You'll lose most of the aiming beam, but you don't need much power anyway. Just start with 20mW instead of 2.

 

[bobhaha]

What if I had a laser mounted on the lens mounted on the focus lens that points at the "following mirror" (the one that actually moves with the X axis) then back at the focusing lens.

Do you think it will have enough reflectivity at ~660nm to work?

 

[Meatball]

HEY. I've done this before: (Sorry, no photos)

Just do what Cyparagon suggested, except you use a line generator lens on each red module. Just rotate the lenses around until both land on the IR spot. Fire both modules up at the same time, and you have a nice cross-hair directly over the heated point. Mount the module near the OC, and you're golden.

 

[AUS]

The apprentice and I are planning to try and build an IR soldering station at work. The idea I had was to pre-focus the IR at a point, and have two 1mW cheap red's aimed so the beams converge at the focal point of the IR beam (or three lasers - like the aiming spot in the Predator movie ).

So if the aiming dots combine into one dot then you are focused right, if they diverge you are further or closer from the focal point - if that makes sense.

EDIT- added diagram:

 

[vk2fro]

I LOL'ed at the last experiment Adrian - "And yes, it can pop a balloon". Nice laser. One day i will get a CO2 - they are the easiest laser to protect eyes against, and can do some serious damage to things placed in the beam

 

[Gamemasher]

I wasn't exactly sure of what to make of gas lasers but this looks really cool.

 

[bobhaha]

So I did a little research and turns out my laser is a little more powerful then I expected...

I didn't even think to double check the length against a CO2 chart... Turns out a 40W CO2 laser is ~70cm long. My tube is 1.3m long... Almost double that of the 40W tubes.... Since the CO2 lasers power is dependent on its length, it seems to be much more powerful then expected.

I will be running tests on it... but I estimate according to these charts I have the laser is gonna be somewhere between 70W and 80W. Pretty pumped! Got a better deal then I thought!

 

[vk2fro]

Nuffin beats getting a little extra for free. Bonus