the sound of a laser beam

[swamidog]

i have some "broadband" cubes here, but i've never metered them for 405. i assume they'll be ok, but not excellent.

first priority is to either get a better table, or resurrect the old clunker i bought off of ebay (it's in much worse shape than was advertised).

1W would be 5 times more/faster than my 0.2W - but check first the losses through the cube.

For combinig more diodes/lasers I'll prefer 100%-mirrors - for a 'ringfocus'-laser we had to design and build the assembly stage for 20Watt-IR-diodes and two rod-lenses in one of my previous jobs ... in the end 80 of this diodes were combined by a special designed mirror-horn, so their overlayed spots averaged to 1.6kW!

Viktor

[VDX]

... until recently I've used my CNC-mill with switching different toolheads for milling, lasercutting/engraving and 3D-printing with a RepRap-extruder and a paste-dispenser.

Now I'm rearranging one of this chinese laser-engravers with a 40W-tube by replacing the electronics with a RAMPS and industrial stepper drivers for testing with SLS (and using it as common CO2-laserengraver too).

Two other projects are centered around salvaged DLP-beamers and the 405nm@200mW- or a 445nm@1W-diode ... and 405nm-diode in a XY-scanning setup ...

But maybe the most interesting setup could be the pulsing TAE-UV-laser through the DLP-beamer with removing all optical guts and refocussing the beam after the DMD-chip to a small image of maybe 2x1mm --- could be something similar to an EXCIMER laser for micro-scaled material processing

Viktor

[swamidog]

those chinese units are temptingly cheap. i'm just very worried about quality. plus, i would learn more by building my own.

... until recently I've used my CNC-mill with switching different toolheads for milling, lasercutting/engraving and 3D-printing with a RepRap-extruder and a paste-dispenser.

Now I'm rearranging one of this chinese laser-engravers with a 40W-tube by replacing the electronics with a RAMPS and industrial stepper drivers for testing with SLS (and using it as common CO2-laserengraver too).

Two other projects are centered around salvaged DLP-beamers and the 405nm@200mW- or a 445nm@1W-diode ... and 405nm-diode in a XY-scanning setup ...

But maybe the most interesting setup could be the pulsing TAE-UV-laser through the DLP-beamer with removing all optical guts and refocussing the beam after the DMD-chip to a small image of maybe 2x1mm --- could be something similar to an EXCIMER laser for micro-scaled material processing

Viktor

[laserlackey]

I always thought lasers made a "pew pew!" sound, like in the movies.

amirite?

[VDX]

... I've got mine for exchange with a spare 3D-printer mechanics (wood-Mendel), so even cheaper

And yes, the quality is below any acceptable level ... but it's good enough to push the mirrors and optical head over the working area (around 300x200mm) with maybe 0.03mm accuracy ...

For better accuracies and laser-working with the diodes I have a flatbed-plotter with synchrone toothbelts and enough stability (the manufacturer offers laser- and engraving toolheads for this type), but for SLS I'll need a Z-stage in the working area and I won't cut a hole in the vacuum-table --- so the chinese engraver with a totally free/empty working area (besides the housing bottom) is a much better candidate for refurbishing

Viktor