So im ready to build my own laser. The openbuild community has helped me with my d-bot 3b printer build mostly by me being a lurker. Most of the problems I had to solve for that were pretty simple. I took a basic design and modified all the 3d printed parts to aluminum and made all the parts. Now its time for a laser build. I have owned a couple glowforges a Full spectrum muse, a red and black and currently own a FC pro. They all have things I like and things I dont. So its time to make a Franken laser with all the parts I like. The control system is pretty straight forward. Very similar to the OX cnc I built. Used Mach 3 for that. Going to use the ruidia controller for the laser. Cooling is a chiller and a water pump, not that hard, off the shelf parts. Where I am really struggling is the laser safe glass. With the co2 laser being 10ish nm all the laser safe glass is a fortune. At $700 for a sheet its almost cheaper to buy a red and black Chinese made laser and upgrade it. I have a hard time believing the cost of the glass is main contributor to the cost of a laser. So with that said, i must be missing something here. I hope you can help me figure out what that is. Before I start to cad up a design I want to make sure its affordable to build. I want to make sure I dont go blind building this thing, I have worked around high power fiber transport lasers for 20 years, dont want to screw up on a personal project. To be specific im looking for a 2 X 4 lid. Not looking for you to do all my research, just point me in a direction. Of course I will post my build progress so others can critique and or learn. Thanks
Acrylic is opaque to 10600um light, thus why it can be cut - it absorbs the light at that frequency quite well. Many machines just use a 1/4" clear acrylic in the lid. An extra layer of shaded tint over the acrylic to shield out secondary wavelengths like the bright visible spot etc helps. Then of course (has to be said) laser goggles at all times
Im not following you, I cut 1/4 acrylic on my machine all the time. If I user 1/4 opaque acrylic(black for example) dosnt that defeat the purpose of a clear top. I could use thin aluminum if i didint want to see whats going on.
Using acrylic for the window in your laser will work well. You have to remember that when your cutting it, it going through your cutting lens. If a stray beam misses a mirror and hits it, all it going to do is mark it up. If that happens, just replace it AFTER you get the problem fixed.
Good Evening, Sir Good evening all, I need to know at what extent of power of CO2 laser can be used with Blackbox X32, like 80Watts, 100 watts, 160watts of laser can be used or only Diode lasers up to 100watts preferred.
Thank You, I need to know how to operate CO2 100 watts laser, like how to connect and test. Related links, documents please share.
Read through my laser build and some of your questions will be answered. I just used acrylic for my top as any stray laser beam will be so far out of focus that it'll only do minimum harm to anything. For anything over a 80 watt tube, you really need a refrigerant type cooler so you don't fry the tube. Rodney's new Laser
