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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Red Laser Plotter (cool!)

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Oct 24, 2006
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Well, because of intellectual property and all that jazz I can't let y'all in on everything, but I recently worked on a project for the lab I work for that should interest you laser geeks =P. Its not too hard for us to make <$1,000 purchases, but anything more than that turns into a bureaucratic impossibility. With precise laser engravers running magnitudes more than that, we got to work on an old HP7470A pen plotter that was laying around (For those of you who aren't ancient like SenKat, think of a plotter as an old-school printer that physically moved a pen around on a piece of paper)


So after spending ages figuring out how to get it computer controlled we manage to hook up a laser based around one of SenKat/Stonetek's red diodes. One of the eventual goals is to burn a grid of 10 micrometer holes into carbon nanotube forests. So far we've managed to get 20-25 micrometer holes but the plotter ain't really accurate to get tighter than that. Here's a pic of that anyway. Nothing too impressive, but keep in mind each hole is only ~1/45th of a millimeter in diameter:
dotfield.jpg



More impressive though is this little shameless promotion I did for Greg/SenKat and StoneTek Electronics. The machine is much better at burning electrical tape :):
stoneteksmall.jpg

I really encourage you to check this pic out at full size at: http://www.pseudonomen.com/lasers/stonetek.jpg


Here's a video of it in action (yep, its slow as hell). Please ignore all the random people talking in the backround (one of whom destroyed my first forest sample when she dropped it, grr):
[urlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK1_jK4xBW0[/url]


Honda stopped by around that time so we also burned their logo into a nanotube forest. That pic is on a computer hundreds of miles away right now though, so I'll post it when I get back in a week.
 





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Re: Placeholder - Do not reply

Okay, I won't respond then.

lol, sorry, couldn't resist. I'll delete this post when the content comes up ;D
 
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I was looking through my Youtube subscriptions today and I saw you uploaded a new video, I have to say this is pretty cool! You don't see these burning lasers made from DVD burner laser diodes put into a productive use very often ;D
 
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Thats awesome!!!! Can you go into details about how you got it to work with the computer? I really want to build something like this...
 
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That's all kinds of awesome... I've been looking into diy cnc-type stuff for a while now, but mostly I've been looking at milling or extruding things... it never occurred to me how awesome a diy laser engraver would be, I always pictured giant co2 tubes with multi-watt IR lasers for engraving and hadn't thought of something as simple as a senkat diode... great work!
 




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