How an Engineer lights a candle...

[Sigurthr]

Here's a quick video I threw together today:


How an Engineer lights a candle: The Heat Ray - YouTube

 

[Things]

Need a focus lens on there, just cuts the wick off before it even tries to ignite

 

[Gun]

Haha, very nice

 

[Laik]

How do you toast your sangas?

 

[scumbagatheist]

If you seriously de-focus the beam, can you make me a grilled cheese sandwich? Oh! And, do you deliver?

 

[Laik]

If you seriously de-focus the beam, can you make me a grilled cheese sandwich? Oh! And, do you deliver?

Agh, so that's how you make them! haha

 

[scumbagatheist]

Conduction cooking is SOOO 19th century!

 

[Things]

I tried cooking toast on my lasercutter once, tends to just burn the sticking up bits and leave the rest untoasted

 

[Sigurthr]

I'm waiting on a lens from China currently. Will be a while with the holiday and all. It will be nice to see the laser's true power once focused, but I do want to do some tests with a divergent beam, say 5cm^2 or so. I think to do a piece of toat you would need like a 60W or better laser, you're talking like 100 sqcm of coverage. You don't need a lot of intensity, just enough to cause higher temp gain than radiative, convective, and conductive losses to the environment at a decent rate. I know I can aim this 15W unfocused at a black anodized heatsink and after a few min I could fry and egg on the heatsink.

The hardest part is aiming a completely invisible beam, heh, not as easy as you would think. I would have had the candle lit in half the time if I could see or hold the 5lb candle still within a mm or so.

 

[phenol]

Thats a nice cushioned plexiglass coffin you got there...

hey, watch out when you play with the znse lens; many surfaces tend to scatter the focused beam, even anodized Al once the black layer is blasted away

 

[Sigurthr]

Haha, I thought it apropriate for what I affectionately call my "death ray", lol.

Aye, I will be exceedingly careful for sure. I'm still waiting on a heat exchanger to come in the mail, once that is in the system will effectively be closed loop and a lot more portable. At that point pretty much all runs will be made outside in a clear area over gravel.