r691175002 wrote:trwalters001 wrote:That's really cool!
I wonder what wavelength laser they're using? It couldn't be CO2 because water absorbs 10.6 microns.
Their technical specs say 532nm and/or 1064 nm.
I know that 1064 is a commonly available diode wavelength as well as the lasing wavelength from nd-yag (which is almost certainly what they use as it is pulsed). I can't imagine that they would intentionally use 532nm although I have read that at high enough power densities laser wavelength can double as many materials are optically non-linear. According to sams faq, people blinded by infrared often see a flash of green because the fluid in ones eye doubles the frequency into the visible range.
They list laser diode pumps as a future improvement so they are probably running flash lamps into a rod of nd-yag. They also claim 200W of cutting power; however they also list a typical co2 system as requiring 1500W so one might be able to use less.
This looks a lot more plausible as a diy project than a true water jet because the pressure is much lower and you don't have to deal with abrasives. I'm not sure what the technical difficulties are in machining a nozzle that can produce a narrow stream of water though (they claim 0.005mm). I'm guessing it would have to be a laminar flow nozzle which would probably require EDM or some other expensive process.
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