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Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
5mw won't do much good for anything... I also doubt it is a full 5mw, if you were just reading the class IIIA sticker that said 5mw it is probably less than that...
Registered Member #75
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 09:30AM
Location: Montana, USA
Posts: 711
Sams laser FAQ tells you everything. In a pinch, a couple of 10s of mW can scorch really thin plastic like video-tapes, with a few 100mW, you can start melting holes in solid plastic, and with a few W you can burn paper. For machinig, you usually want to blow off small chunks of material rather than melt it, so q-switched lasers with GWs of peak and 100s of W average power are used. A single pulse of 100mJ or so can blow a small hole into a razor blade.
Diode lasers are generally not good for this sort of thing, since it is close to impossible to focus them properly. They are only useful for communications, or testing diode drivers without having to worry about blowing up something expensive
Registered Member #89
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145
You can use it as a big and unwieldy laser pointer. It can't really blow even human eye with few miliwats of power (unless you really want it). HeNe tubes are tipycally 5-10mW at most.
Registered Member #89
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145
Ths way you may get few more mw of peak power, but lasting very short and you couldn't burn anything with it.You would just waste the power and blow the tube up if you go for too much energy.
You really need a lot better than a puny HeNe laser. Maybe a big diode, CO2, Green Yag's can be strong and beatutiful ('strong' in terms of popping ballons and burning tape).
CO2 seems to be favourite for burning lasers, and some diodes can be pretty powerful but I don't see much people using them.
Registered Member #206
Joined: Sat Feb 18 2006, 03:17PM
Location:
Posts: 72
Ok, so I'll just try to get it working as cw laser and then mess around a little
I've payd just 5€ for the tube, I think the fun will be worth it though I cant burn or destroy anything (except my eyes if I'm not careful enogh...).
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What to do with a 5mW IR laser?
