8 ms·
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.
by xavieralexandre 2y ago
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).
- pureheartlover 2y agoHonestly I'm kinda surprised there aren't handheld laser engraving devices made for quick and permanent graffiti.
- abakker 2y agoThere are abundant portable galvo head lasers out there. A lot of them targeting the hobby market, but also more powerful ones (that are less cheap) meant for marking or engraving parts in situ. Everlast now has a laser welder, too. I think it’s only a matter of time before we get cheaper cutter in the 1kw range.
- nomel 2y agoAnd cheaper DMLS printers [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxzFzbi0wF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxzFzbi0wF4
- TeMPOraL 2y agoOn that note, did anyone ever make a handheld inkjet or spray nozzle, so you could print graffiti on walls or things on the go? I imagine most of the tech in it would be the same as in the kind of laser device you're asking about.
- daef 2y agothe colop e-mark stuff basically puts an inkjet head into a handheld printer https://www.colop.com/de_eur/mobiles-drucken/e-mark https://www.colop.com/de_eur/mobiles-drucken/e-mark
- garaetjjte 2y agohttps://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush https://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush
- codesnik 2y agoor quick and permanent scar
- bloggie 2y agoThese do exist, here's one I saw recently: https://www.laserpwr.net/hand-held-laser/hand-held-laser-2.html https://www.laserpwr.net/hand-held-laser/hand-held-laser-2.h...
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago30W? That's a pretty powerful laser. A 1W laser can set stuff on fire. A 5W laser can cut steel.
- ben_w 2y ago> A 5W laser can cut steel I've experimented with using a 60 W (I think*) laser on a small steel bracket, and even with the beam holding on a single point for a minute, it made a barely visible dot that you couldn't feel by running your finger over. * It was nearly a decade ago, but I looked up the relevant hacker space and unless they changed the model, it was 60 watts. The bracket was around 1cm by 5cm, and around 1mm thick.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoFair ‘nuff. I know that a friend had a 3-5W laser (don’t remember -it was a CO2 laser) he used for wood burning, and it was fast. It may also be what they measure.
- dangrossman 2y agoA 60W CO2 laser won't touch steel (or even paper thin aluminum foil), while a 10W diode can cut through it. The type/wavelength of laser matters greatly.
- lightedman 2y ago60w back then would be a CO2 LASER - that's 10600nm and that basically bounces off any non-oxidized metal. The fiber marking LASERs at work are 1064nm, and at a mere 20w output, will absolutely eat away at steel with no problems. Edit: I should note there are CO2 metal cutting LASERs, but they are at very, very high output powers to overcome that reflectivity barrier. You need 500w 10600nm to cut through what a 30w 1064nm could cut. My 80w CO2 barely cuts through heavy-duty aluminum foil, and in many spots it isn't a full cut. A 20w marking LASER at 1064 would obliterate the foil.
- coder543 2y agoCan you expand on why you think this would be so great for home workshops? How do you envision using the laser? Handheld, mounted, or on a CNC?
- mft_ 2y agoCNC would be an obvious implementation. At the moment, there are expensive-but-affordable home CNC laser cutters, typically for a small number of thousand EUR/USD. The more powerful ones can do a very neat job cutting (up to a few mm of) plywood. There are also CNC plasma cutters, which do a good but slightly rough job of cutting sheet metal, and are relatuvely large and complex beasts. I guess a highly-powerful laser, of the type envisioned, would offer the best of all worlds: relatively neat and quick cutting of all materials on the same compact machine. They might also replace handheld plasma cutters (and welders?) too.
- coder543 2y agoYeah, my larger point is that there are already plenty of ways to cut metal in a home workshop. I don't see how a laser would be an improvement on any of those, unless the goal is to CNC with extremely tight tolerances, but even then... it seems unlikely that you'll be CNCing blocks of metal, more likely just 2D cuts from sheets of metal, which is pretty limiting. It would certainly be fun for some stuff, but I think the danger level of a super high power laser detracts from the fun. More powerful cutting lasers would definitely be great for industrial use cases.
- mft_ 2y agoYou're right that such things already exist; I think it would offer two incremental improvements: * for wood, faster and/or thicker cutting, vs. existing CNC laser cutters * for sheet metal, neater/cleaner cutting (i.e. cleaner cuts, higher tolerances, less subsequent prep-work needed) perhaps in a smaller neater machine, vs. existing CNC plasma cutters. Especially within the context of a CNC machine, I wouldn't be overly concerned about safety - all of the more powerful CNC laser cutters I'm aware of already come with an exclosure - both for laser safety, and to constrain smoke (before it's vented safely).
- phkahler 2y ago>> (And sneakily dangerous as lasers are) These seem safer. With a wide emission area and focusing lens, a reflected beam will weaken with distance.
- TaylorAlexander 2y agoIndeed, I feel less worried about my 50w solid state laser cutting head from China than I would a 5w laser pointer, as the 50w laser head has a 5mm focal distance and the head has a 50mm square housing, so it mostly obscures what it is lasing and it defocuses quickly.
- Blackthorn 2y agoGiven how quickly dangerous these compact lasers can be, I think I'd rather stick with the handheld plasma cutter.
- rozap 2y agoThe quality of the cuts out of a plasma cutter are not great. I always have to spend some time cleaning them up after the fact. I'd hope laser cut parts are much better.
- Qworg 2y agoGiven large scale laser cuts I've seen - they require less cleanup, but still some. You spatter molten metal everywhere.
- TaylorAlexander 2y agoI have a CNC plasma cutter which I use for making robots, and have also worked with laser cut metal. The laser cutter is so, so much more precise. On the plasma I cut some gear teeth with 5mm pitch and they’re okay for a coarse positioning system that doesn’t rotate continuously. On a laser you could cleanly cut 1mm pitch gears for continuous rotation I would think.
- Qworg 2y agoOh, absolutely! I was more speaking to the clean up. Lasers are a big step up.
- Blackthorn 2y agoIf I'm doing handheld cuts I'm not holding out that much hope for precision anyway.
- sylware 2y agoAren't such laser cutters in enclosing opaq casing with a operation monitoring camera to avoid accidents?
- TaylorAlexander 2y agoPlenty are available for sale without the casing, such as this one: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804553731471.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804553731471.html I have worked with several nicer fully enclosed models that do not have any monitoring camera. I have a similar model to this one with no such camera, and I suspect this one does not have one either: https://omtechlaser.com/products/60w-co2-laser-engraver-with-16-x-24-working-area https://omtechlaser.com/products/60w-co2-laser-engraver-with... That said if a kilowatt metal cutting laser was for sale, I would suspect it would have a full enclosure at least.
- dtgriscom 2y agoThey should be so enclosed, but I doubt they're always so enclosed.
- sylware 2y agoShould be a basic security regulatory constraint for such equipement to be allowed to be sold. If it is not the case, something is wrong somewhere.
- MarcScott 2y agoThese lasers mean that the watches that Q gave to James Bond will finally become a reality. LLMs and self-driving cars mean that KITT from Knight Rider will finally become a reality. All I need is for Webb to discover a planet a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, and my childhood fictions will have been realised.
- rohansingh 2y agoWouldn't you still need to provide an amount of power to the laser that's not currently feasible for a watch?
- thesz 2y ago> Having a cheap laser able to cut metal at home / small shops would be so useful (And sneakily dangerous as lasers are). So, please do not come around these lasers with remaining eye unprotected. I think one should work with these things only using some cameras and never directly.
- nabilhat 2y agoA more powerful laser is only half of the equation for cutting metal effectively. The laser only melts the metal, it doesn't move it out of the cut, and some metals can react in plain air to sputter back at the emitter optics. Gas is forced under pressure at the cut to clear it. With some metals and/or thinner (speaking from a commercial perspective) stock, you can get away with plain air at high volumes of normal air compressor pressures with good results if it's very clean and dry. Others require specifically reactive or nonreactive gases or blends of gases. That's true for most hot cutting processes though. Plasma usually consumes plain air to blow out the cut, oxy-fuel uses excess oxygen to reactively blow out the cut. Lasers with their extremely narrow kerf are more finicky, which can mean a surprisingly high consumables cost. More powerful lasers also require the optical hardware to operate in a light vacuum. Plasma generated by dust and air itself will ablate expensive parts. Home shops shouldn't need that much power though. If you're cutting thick or difficult metals regularly, that's not a hobby any more. Then there's the byproducts. Organics get blasted into all kinds of random organic-ish things that aren't great to ingest or emit at ground level near neighbors (PSA, this is true for current hobby lasers). Cutting metals can get really exciting if you don't clean often and thoroughly enough to prevent a critical mass of finely powdered byproducts. An iron or aluminum fire will wreck your laser. An iron and aluminum fire will wreck your laser, and whatever it's sitting on, and the concrete below that.
- angra_mainyu 2y agoI shudder at the thought of these kinda of lasers reaching the hands of those involved in street crime.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoYou can already blind people with cheap laser pointers. This isn't a new danger.