Do any of you use your home lasers for fabrication purposes?

[ChukiDori]

This might sound odd. Im thinking of actually doing something "useful" with a high power laser in the future.

I play around cars a lot and it seems having a laser would be very handy for precision cutting of light materials such as plastics for various things on a small scale. And its much more fun than using blades ^_^

What type of power levels do you think would be sufficient for such tasks. Seeing 2 watts melt through cd cases gave me the idea tee hee

I really ..want to look into building a nice table top laser 5w< once I get my feet a little more wet and work up the scale some. Could probably get a nice adjustable mount or have one made too I could crank to more accurately control its position against a fixed target.

 

[lasersbee]

You would probably need something like this....

Solo Desktop 40Watt CO2 Laser Cutting Machine (Pro). Support Mach3 & KCam. Shipping included!


Jerry
(9800-368-32665)

 

[ChukiDori]

Ahh but if it doesnt necessitate using goggles and exposed beams and "danger stickers" around my garage then its hardly useful



But out of curiosity couldnt 50W burn/cut metal ...albeit very slowly and inefficiently? its enough power right..? Like thin sheets.

 

[lasersbee]

Ahh but if it doesnt necessitate using goggles and exposed beams and "danger stickers" around my garage then its hardly useful



But out of curiosity couldnt 50W burn/cut metal ...albeit very slowly and inefficiently? its enough power right..? Like thin sheets.

You will need to read the information/specs and reviews on that
40W CNC Laser cutter....


Jerry

 

[ChukiDori]

This is amazing and I still have so much to learn ^_^.

Im just looking at the specs as u said and it hit me that there is such a low current. I need to do more research on electrical theory. I was under the impression amperage was a representation of the amount of electrons, the "volume". And voltage being the "pressure".

Actually the best way I can think to explain whats in my head is comparing it to computer clock cycles and bit rate. With voltage being clock cycles, and amps being bit rate. Is that correct? So if your "bit rate" is ..64..then every clock cycle you are moving 64 bits. There are two ways to increase performance..if you increase bit rate (current) to say 128 more bits per cycle are moved (128 per cycle! thats twice as before). But if you increase the clock speed (voltage) and leave it at 64 bits...but the cycles happen twice as fast..you are still moving the same 128 bits over the same period of time..

But ive been reading up a lot on the FEL reports and they keep talking about "voltage" as synonomous with the amount of electrons that can be added to the stream like "omg we need to break the 500mV barrier". Cuz its achillies heel is how many electrons can be present to produce photons..meh.

going off topic towards the laser science section ^__^