Building another laser cutter

[JRouche]

I dont know. The problem with them and metal is they suck. JR

I know Lasers.. JR

[macona]

Focus testing, the Z moves up .005" every increment then I find the narrowest cut and I can focuser the offset from there.

[macona]

Working on the exhaust now, I have some aluminum honeycomb coming a and ordered some extruded aluminum from Misumi to build the frame to hold it. For the exhaust fan I am using a fan setup that was pulled out of an old Spectra Physics laser diode power supply. A little over 200CFM. I took a piece of 1/2 acrylic and cut it to fit in the garage window frame and used the laser to cut the holes to mount a dryer vent exhaust to it.

Need to mess around with finding good feed rates for this, I was cutting slower than I needed to here.

[JRouche]

I like it... Macona? You been digging into the supplies?

I love the setup. Disstance is a ;il long, for a hot laz... JR

[macona]

I like it... Macona? You been digging into the supplies?

I love the setup. Disstance is a ;il long, for a hot laz... JR

Supplies?

Distance?

[macona]

Cutting table is mostly finished, got some 1/8" cell 1" thick aluminum honeycomb off amazon and built a frame around it with extrusion and parts from Misumi. It gets compressed in the frame so the table surface is pretty stiff.

[macona]

Ran some cut test in latex sheeting too. Made a little program that ran cuts at different feed rates to find the cleanest cuts. Found 100ipm at 20khz and 12.5% in EPM mode does a nice, clean cut.

I also tried to lower the PWM freq to lower the average power to try and mark the material, ended up just blowing 100um holes though the latex. Perforations anyone?

[Toolguy]

Have you heard about the new waterjet lasers? If I understand correctly, the water jet is used like a fiber optic and the laser going down the middle of it has total internal reflection. This makes the laser beam straight and parallel so focal length is very long. The water also cools the cut for little or no heat affected zone on either side of the cut, and also washes out debris from the kerf. This gives a very clean, straight sided cut on the material. You're the only person I know of who might be able to replicate this at home.

[macona]

Yeah. There is another thread about that started a couple weeks ago by someone.

it would be a challenge at the very least. You would probably need a fiber laser or other NIR lasers. Then figure out a way to get a nice laminar flow through a nozzle while getting the beam into that. Not easy and a big mess! I’d have to ask some of the optical Engineers at work how they would go about getting the beam focused into the stream.

[mattthemuppet]

being able to create small perforations in thin material could be pretty handy. Would it be able to do so in thin alu sheet, or would the power requirements be too high?

[macona]

I tried to cut through a pop can but it couldn’t do it. Probably because of thermal conductivity and lack of absorption.