Need Thoughts on hids and rods

[diachi]

Custom made motors are around 500 to start.

If i could have made my own laser cutter, I could use it for plenty of other things.

What units are you using for currency...? Pounds? US Dollars? Zimbabwean Dollars? Yuan?

At any rate, you're not going to get a laser cutter that can cut steel for 100 of any currency, unless you get very lucky *****ter diving/happen to get lucky on an auction.

 

[flare09]

And that's why I'm looking at the thrifty option of using headlights, and a fleabay rod as a possibility for pulsed laser.

Like I concluded, it would work in theory. But as far as conversion efficiency, it's not worth the effort.

As suggested, I'm looking at homemade edm machines. The complexity seems fairly low, and for what they are, it may be a better option than laser.

I was referring to U.S. Currency.

 

[diachi]

And that's why I'm looking at the thrifty option of using headlights, and a fleabay rod as a possibility for pulsed laser.

Like I concluded, it would work in theory. But as far as conversion efficiency, it's not worth the effort.

As suggested, I'm looking at homemade edm machines. The complexity seems fairly low, and for what they are, it may be a better option than laser.

I was referring to U.S. Currency.

I never even thought about DIY EDM! Might need to look that up. Definitely a good choice.

 

[RedCowboy]

I was originally thinking about friction cutting with a diamond coated wire band type saw.
Now EDM is amazing but not a simple thing, you have to know the feed rate for the material and thickness, filter the dielectric fluid, ect... Remember it's the spark that erodes the material, not as small a bite as a femtosecond laser but still the wire is not a stressed member, not against the work piece AFAIK, also I can see that machine rigidity would need to be significant as well as exacting 3D geometry, more so for thicker materials but still.

Thinking about it I bet EDM works a lot like reverse electroplating, It's got to use a DC current because they can erode the wire end for piercing and making flat bottom holes, that is by reversing the electron flow they can shape the end of the wire but not erode the work piece, then reversing polarity it's the work piece and not the wire that is eroded, also I see then reversing the direction of the wire, likely to clear it.

I wonder about voltage and current also is it pulsed at all to help keep the wire clear, there's a lot to EDM that makes it look like an expensive DIY

 

[Cyparagon]

And that's why I'm looking at the thrifty option of using headlights, and a fleabay rod as a possibility for pulsed laser.

Not gonna happen. Automotive HIDs are not an appropriate laser pumping source at all. You cannot build a YAG for $100.

I'm custom building a brushless motor for a project.

FOR a project, or AS a project?

We're getting closer. Please be more specific. What is this project? We can help you a lot better if you actually tell us what you're trying to do.

 

[flare09]

Yeah, digging into the edm, it will require a lot of trial and error, finding the right feed rates and power. I came across a few pages on recommended power for different applications. But overall the process is a bit easier than with everything that comes with pumping a crystal.

The motor is part of a larger project. I am really planning on taking this to production so I don't want to give a lot of detail about what exactly it's going into. But, the bottom line is that this part has to be made this specific way.

 

[RedCowboy]

You can have a machine shop fab your parts with a NDA, I'm sure they would accept the work and I expect your secrets would be safe if you farmed out components to different shops and made the parts that you can yourself including the finishing, if not have you thought about metal 3D printing or a polymer 3D printed mock up?

 

[flare09]

It would be nice to be able to 3D print a mock-up yes. But the steel I'm trying to cut is made in a very specific way so AFAIK it can't be printed.

 

[Cyparagon]

Since the information you're willing to supply is sub-par, our advice will also be sub-par. The best I can suggest at this point is to outsource the cutting. $100 is all but useless in todays industry.

I am really planning on taking this to production

If your budget for a crucial tool is $100, you cannot afford to take this into production. You need to rethink all of this.

 

[flare09]

I'm quite aware how useless $100 is.

I lost my job and tinkering is the best thing I have to keep me sane. Excuse my reasoning to look into thrifty ways to skin the same cat. But I feel it was reasonable for me to assume a xenon headlight lamp might be able to excite a nd yag. The emission spectrum of xenon and Krypton don't change between arcing a $1200 lamp, or a $20 headlight.

Now I know the conversion efficiency is less than 2% and my attempt at pumping 600W would be a fun experiment, but would not yield a viable cutting source.

I came looking for information. Not redicule. I have the real world in perspective here. I know what a startup entails. This project is something I want to accomplish. My goal right now is to build a working prototype, and being that I forsee this a possible source of income, I have decided to spend the little extra I can spare on it.

And I'm being defensive here because I have been on this forum for a long time. I just dont understand why these familiar members I see, who used to provide such unbiased and straightforward information, now pull each opportunity to beat down a new idea. Maybe it's all these kids who want to just shine a laser at a plane without mom and dad knowing what the built. But there's a lot of bitterness on this page. Lpf isn't what it used to be.

 

[diachi]

I lost my job and tinkering is the best thing I have to keep me sane.

The emission spectrum of xenon and Krypton don't change between arcing a $1200 lamp, or a $20 headlight.

Now I know the conversion efficiency is less than 2% and my attempt at pumping 600W would be a fun experiment, but would not yield a viable cutting source.

I hear you, a man needs work. My old man is unemployed and gets agitated when he can't get doing his wood turning.


Yes, but the emission spectrum of Xenon is not the same as Krypton. Krypton is better for pumping Nd:YAG. Xenon works but it's emissions in the Nd:YAG NIR absorption bands are lower than that of Krypton. That's not your only problem, a linear arc lamp is far easier to couple efficiently into a YAG rod than a HID lamp from a car. Essentially your pump chamber creates an image of the arc inside of the YAG rod, resulting in good coupling. A pump source is useless if you can't couple it into the gain medium effectively.


That <2% number is for high pressure krypton long arc lamps with proper pump chambers. Xenon HID lamps with an improvised pump chamber would be far lower than that.

All that said, I encourage experimentation, just giving you advice. If you go ahead with this please keep us updated on the results, I'd be interested to see how you get on. I always like seeing people experiment!


This video has some good information on pump chambers:

His other laser videos are well worth a watch too.

 

[Cyparagon]

But I feel it was reasonable for me to assume a xenon headlight lamp might be able to excite a nd yag.

Maybe if you don't understand how HID headlights work. They're very different from xenon short arc lamps. They're often called "xenon", because they have a xenon buffer gas, but metal halides create most of the light. It is more correct to call them metal halide lamps.

Automotive HIDs run on medium voltage AC, are medium pressure, and utilize metal halides as the light source.
Xenon short arc lamps run on low voltage DC, are VERY, VERY high pressure, and use only xenon to produce the light.

...pull each opportunity to beat down a new idea.

Uh... so, to recap:

You: "Will this work?"
Others: "No, and here's why"
You: "Why are you beating down my ideas??"


I don't understand. :can:

 

[diachi]

Maybe if you don't understand how HID headlights work. They're very different from xenon short arc lamps. They're often called "xenon", because they have a xenon buffer gas, but metal halides create most of the light. It is more correct to call them metal halide lamps.

Automotive HIDs run on medium voltage AC, are medium pressure, and utilize metal halides as the light source.
Xenon short arc lamps run on low voltage DC, are VERY, VERY high pressure, and use only xenon to produce the light.

That's a good point, I'm forgetting that automotive HID lamps are metal-halide. Not going to work at all with those, if you got any lasing at all it'd be horrendously inefficient.

For the curious, that means up to 440psi.

Again, by all means experiment, just don't expect good results.