painted or anodized?

[ixfd64]

It seems that the coating on lasers are either painted or anodized. The latter is usually better because they are more resistant to scratches and strong solvents. According to Justin from Laserglow, it is hard to scratch an anodized coating, even with a metal object.

For example, CNI's pen-style lasers use glossy paint instead of an anodized coating because strong solvents seem to dissolve it. The coating on Wicked's "Executive" series lasers seems to be cheap paint since it has started falling off after just hours of use. The RPL and similar lasers don't seem to use anodized coatings either since I've seen several pictures of RPLs with the coating wearing off, but I could be wrong. On the other hand, lasers from Laserglow, as well as some lasers from Skylasers and NOVAlasers (the "Alpha" series) do use anodized coatings, or so they say.

Are there any ways to tell whether a coating is painted or anodized without actually trying to scratch it?

 

[FokoF]

Anodizing is for aluminum, most laser bodies are not made from pure aluminum. You can scratch it, trust me, my paintball marker is anodized and it greats pretty scratched. To tell the difference is a little hard to describe.... The feel and look is different, by feel i mean it still feels like metal and the look is slightly transparent... you need to have both and look at them... one of those times i can't put my thoughts into words.....

 

[Benm]

Well, there are tests that are safe to anodized surfaces but damaged painted ones: solvents like acetone or hydrocarbons usually damage paint, and so does heat. Anodized aluminium will have no problem with either within reasonable degrees. This does however depend a bit on the actual anodization and dye used: It might be possbile to crack the anodized layer with heat due to expantion, and it is possible to dissolve the dye out of the anodized layer to some degree. If the latter happens, the wear protection of the anodization is still intact, but it will obviously look bad.

Visually telling the difference between anodized or well matte painted surfaces is very dificult. It would be possible using a contactless spectrophotometer.

Another thing that works on partly coated items is looking at the boundrary between coated and uncoated. Anodization must coat the entire object, after which some of it can be removed (to tap thread, provide electrical contact etc). All uncoated pieces will have a 'scraped out' appearance unless polished afterwards - the latter is uncommon because it makes to sense to remove anodization from visible parts.

 

[RA_pierce]

The Alpha series and laserglow's Aries, Herc, and Galileo are all anodized aluminum.

An easy way to tell if a surface is painted or anodized is to view the laser's body in Infrared.
If it appears white or pale and shiny, it is anodized.
Aluminum reflects IR.