191–200 of 200 posts
The article rightly points out the industrial impact of more powerful and compact lasers but I cannot wait for those PCSELs to reach the small workshop market. Having a cheap laser able to cut metal at home / small shops would be so useful (And sneakily dangerous as lasers are).
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Aren't such laser cutters in enclosing opaq casing with a operation monitoring camera to avoid accidents?
They should be so enclosed, but I doubt they're always so enclosed.
The article rightly points out the industrial impact of more powerful and compact lasers but I cannot wait for those PCSELs to reach the small workshop market. Having a cheap laser able to cut metal at home / small shops would be so useful (And sneakily dangerous as lasers are).
I shudder at the thought of these kinda of lasers reaching the hands of those involved in street crime.
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"Use goggles to protect remaining eye"
A long while ago, I was told that the flight deck crew on Air Force One would wear eyepatches during nuclear drills, so that if (hopefully temporarily) blinded by an airborne nuke, would be able to continue flying after switching the eyepatch to the other eye.
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The same can be said of BB guns that can put out eyes, lock picks that can open locked doors, and bolt cutters than can break chains. More powerful tools are a good thing.
What about nuclear weapons, which have become so accessible that even small organizations can have them?
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Shrinking things on silicon wafers.. The article explains that it has potential for welding and other commercial applications but it's not quite there yet. It did cut through 100um steel. It's a good read.
What does that have to do with "shrinking thing on silicon wafers" ? This isn't really even new technology. Welding and cutting lasers have been around for a while. Do you think that cutting steel and making CPUs is the same process or that making smaller transistors just needs more power in the laser?
Some googling confirmed that Moore wrote about component density, not specifically transistors. That confirms my hunch. An increasingly higher output laser on silicon fits the same pattern of exponential growth.
Hope that helps you understand where I was coming from. As a layperson it seems like exciting science with lots of commercial and scientific applications (that are also described in the article).
> Gordon Moore’s famous article is published in Electronics magazine. In the article, Moore predicts an annual doubling of component density on an integrated circuit at minimum manufacturing costs. Moore later identified “a component” as “transistor, resistor, diode or capacitor.”
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The precision of a laser cutter would open up a lot of possibilities. Particularly making things that slot together with tabs - like fabbing my own welding squares and fixtures where a cnc plasma cutter would leave too rough an edge to have them slot together accurately.
Can't you buy a CNC mill/router that can cut metal more precisely than a CNC plasma cutter?
Most sheet good are too large to be placed on or moved around by a cnc mill table.
CNC milling is a slow process (unless you can drop six figures on one).
CNC mills take a lot longer to setup and program, and also require more skill to have a successful result (no chatter, not breaking bits, ramping into the cut on interior features).
Good CNC mills that can handle steel are massively heavy and large machines which makes transport and setup difficult for the home machinist.
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Diode based lasers have driven the cost to laser cut plywood down to affordable levels (~$200 for a creality/comgrow/chinabrand 5w laser). I just bought two of them off ebay as "customer returned" for $75 dollars a piece. they work great on the 1/8in plywood and 3/8in foam i've been cutting. Haven't tried 1/4in ply yet but I bet going slower or multi pass and it will do it. Edit: It easily cut 1/4 ply (used 2 passes,…
What is this genre of machine called, just a laser cutter? I would love to play with this
Searching for Comgrow, Creality Falcon, Atomstack, or Sculpfun laser engraver will get you pretty far.
Edit: I should add the more dishonest chinese sellers will advertise "20w or 40w laser engraver" and what they mean is the entire machine consumes 40w with a 5w optical output. Dont be fooled.
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30W? That's a pretty powerful laser. A 1W laser can set stuff on fire. A 5W laser can cut steel.
Keep in mind that is the constant (average) power. Assuming this is a Q-switched laser with ~10 ns pulse duration, peak power is ~70 kW. (Kind of low as far as lasers go these days, but it's just a laser marker)
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Keep in mind that is the constant (average) power. Assuming this is a Q-switched laser with ~10 ns pulse duration, peak power is ~70 kW. (Kind of low as far as lasers go these days, but it's just a laser marker)
Are Q-switched / pulsed lasers common in industrial applications?