I am thinking about to build a DIY quicly removable enclosure around my 1080nm JPT MOPA 60W galvo laser.
One of my reasons is that although I can wear safety glasses, but making sure nobody enters inattentively my workshop during lasering is an additional worry. and that I shouldn’t be so keen to rule out all possibilities of forgetting the glasses would also be a relief.
in some countries, like eg. Germany (maybe all EU?) open lasers are not even allowed in professional use.
I am thinking of magnetic mounts, so the four shields (each on one side, open on top) can be removed quickly. Three of them could be just plain sheet metal or some plastic, but on the front I would use some transparent laser safety acrylic or polycarbonate would be even better, not that fragile.
Does anybody know of a not too expensive source for this material to block 1080nm wavelength? (What I have found so far is shockingly expensive, I can even relax somewhat with the blocking level, it is not about a $200k 5kW industrial laser)
When my enclosure is ready I will mount a web camera inside to watch the process, would be even more comfortable to watch it from my chair on my monitor. and much cheaper to replace that camera than my eyes
If you have some leftovers of different polycarbonate or acrylic, you can do a “low-tech” test by testing whether your laser can cut through or is blocked by these materials. Place a piece of cardboard under the glass and test with maximum laser effect.
I built a housing for my diode laser with orange material, it worked as intended.
People stick their hands in the beam… I wouldn’t. I’ve tried to mark baloney/hot dogs, nothing… must not have the same effect. I can mark them with the co2.
It won’t really mark wood either… I wonder where all the power is actually going…
technically, it’s just the wavelength that can’t be “used” for organic substances, just as diode lasers can’t handle clear acrylic. Meeennnn… it’s still creepy.
It reminds me of a video I saw where someone shoots a laser beam into a pig’s eye (from the butcher) to see the consequences…
If I can’t engrave a piece of meat at the focus, I doubt it’s going to do much damage to someones finger. The people that have done it, claim it’s slightly warm.
I’ve seen videos of people sticking thier finger in a K40 beam between m2/m3. Said it was like a cigarette burn… In my mind it’s stupid, but, I’ll watch them do it…
I learned a long time ago, to keep my paws outside of the working area of machine, especially automated ones…
Yes, that is fortunately true, otherwise with such proliferation of these lasers in people’s homes what we are experiencing, and if it worked like Luke Skywalker’s sword there’d be a lot more people with less than ten fingers.
another question is what will we do with lasers (for money) when almost everyone will soon have his own machine to play with?
I don’t know where the energy goes… we know it goes somewhere…
I suspect is somehow widely distributed and that’s the heat people feel when they do this.
I had a couple friends, military and they installed some of the radar sites in Alaska for NORAD… They told me it was common to stand in front of the dish and have someone warm them up…
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