Homemade metal cutting laser possible?
colin heath, Thu Jan 19 2017, 12:54PMHello All,
Has anyone experience if it's possible to build a homemade metal cutting laser ?
I'm looking at upto 5-10mm thickness so it's power would be up in KW range I think.
CO2 laser seem the usual on commercial bought lasers but they are out of my price range.
I have machine shop etc so no problem making components but may not be viable or can maybe modify something else.
Any recommended reading on lasers would be most welcome also.
Good to be back anyway 🙂
Re: Homemade metal cutting laser possible?
2Spoons, Thu Jan 19 2017, 08:24PM
You haven't stated what metal. CO2 will cut steel, for aluminium you'd need either a lot more power or a copper halide laser.
I had a friend who was looking into building a Nd:YAG laser for metal cutting - while the laser rod itself was fairly cheap, the diode pump laser was still very expensive, the power supply was a tricky beast , and the laser cavity and cooling design were far from trivial.
The reality is for what you hope to achieve expect to spend a lot of money and a lot of time. I don't think building your own for economic reasons is going to work out the way you think. Doing it for the kudos of having built your own multi-kW laser, that I can understand!
2Spoons, Thu Jan 19 2017, 08:24PM
You haven't stated what metal. CO2 will cut steel, for aluminium you'd need either a lot more power or a copper halide laser.
I had a friend who was looking into building a Nd:YAG laser for metal cutting - while the laser rod itself was fairly cheap, the diode pump laser was still very expensive, the power supply was a tricky beast , and the laser cavity and cooling design were far from trivial.
The reality is for what you hope to achieve expect to spend a lot of money and a lot of time. I don't think building your own for economic reasons is going to work out the way you think. Doing it for the kudos of having built your own multi-kW laser, that I can understand!
Re: Homemade metal cutting laser possible?
Conundrum, Tue Jan 31 2017, 05:20AM
I had an idea a while back to make a laser cutter using the somewhat inexpensive BiInSn eutectic.
It would be tricky but doable, in this case you actively cool the workpiece and then use the laser to heat substrate. Mixing in a few ppm of carbon black or something that absorbs the laser (cough EL /cough) would do it, in fact this would be highly effective.
Conundrum, Tue Jan 31 2017, 05:20AM
I had an idea a while back to make a laser cutter using the somewhat inexpensive BiInSn eutectic.
It would be tricky but doable, in this case you actively cool the workpiece and then use the laser to heat substrate. Mixing in a few ppm of carbon black or something that absorbs the laser (cough EL /cough) would do it, in fact this would be highly effective.
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