Unexpected uses for laser

[Scott Challoner]

I did something similar with my galvo fiber. Worked pretty well on a honey knife my brother got at an auction. I had to do it in sections.


Honey Knife.jpg

[John Blazy]

etching-rustysteel.jpgI jus tried this on my rusty steel weight plate. Works as well as the video that Al posted. did 50mm/second @ 90% power on the last one and it takes rust off perfectly on all settings. I let it out of focus a bit too.

[David Somers]

That was with your Rabbit John?

Hmmmm!

I have a friend who used to be a large engine mechanic and has lots of metal toys in his shop. He has been lusting after either a laser or a CNC to play with. This might tip him over the edge! Will see if I have something rusty kicking about to try this with on my 80W CO2 machine.

[John Blazy]

Yep, my bunny laser. Seems like the surface is ready for a nice epoxy primer, then topcoat. I picked at it, and nothing coming off, and the lasered area appears to be lower than the rest, so it definitely took the rust layer off.
Although a wire wheel on grinder would likely do just as well, but a grinder wont do the whole surface with a simple press of a button.

Tempt your buddy - I approve. Then cut a few gaskets for him.

[Bert Kemp]

Now I am going to get all my rusty tools into to laser

[David Somers]

John....he may actually need me to cut a gasket or two for him. His wife will surely blow a gasket if he goes to her about buying a laser!!! He will need a replacement gasket at that point. <grin>

And Bert! Fortunately, my Chinese laser has a very deep Z on it. I think I can get things like the lawn mower in there after it has sat unused through this long, wet Seattle winter! (after our drought last summer we just broke the recorded records for rain Oct through March! And still two weeks to go in the season too!!)

And now, with the advent of some sunshine our lawn has gone nuts and needs to be mowed. Sigh. That extra hour of sunlight from daylight savings time really gets the plants going doesn't it? I have always thought that has to contribute to climate change. An extra hour of sunshine, during the warmest part of the year??? It HAS to have an effect, huh? (grin)

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

And now, with the advent of some sunshine our lawn has gone nuts and needs to be mowed. Sigh. That extra hour of sunlight from daylight savings time really gets the plants going doesn't it? I have always thought that has to contribute to climate change. An extra hour of sunshine, during the warmest part of the year??? It HAS to have an effect, huh? (grin)

.... you mean you haven't modified your laser to cut your grass? Sheesh! You're slacking off now. (This being written by someone who has lawn mowers at the ready and can open the farm gate and say "go eat" when the grass is getting a bit long... )

[David Somers]

Hey Mike!

Just because I haven't gone out with a Kickstarter Campaign announcement yet doesn't mean I haven't been busy developing things!!! I got a used 400 watt Kern laser and took it apart. I mounted in on a long rail that runs the length of my yard with the lens facing parallel to the ground at a perfect height for cutting the lawn. Since using the standard lens for the unit would have been silly......who wants a lawn laser cut a mere 2 inches away after all, I had to design a new lens system that created a tight, parallel beam of highly focused light that contained all the energy of the laser along its entire length. Once I had that done I placed protective steel coatings around all the plants my wife wanted to allow to grow and then tested it. It took very little time to laser cut the entire lawn, while leaving the plants and flowers standing upright. My next step is to set it up on a motion detector so it will act as a soliciting reduction system. I had that in place today and I think it worked OK. At least the disembodied feet in shoes remaining on my walkway at the entrance to the yard just past the "No Soliciting" sign would suggest it worked. The tops of the feet remaining were exactly the height of the neatly trimmed lawn which is a good sign. I will keep testing to make sure that both aspects of my system, lawn mowing and solicitation prevention, are working well.

Ooooooh. I need to run out and shut it off for now. The wife just got home from grocery shopping and is walking up to the gate!!! More on my project later!

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[Paul Phillips]

Ha, ha, David, Hope you wife made it in with the groceries! Thanks for the comic relief. I'm thinking something like that would be great for a Halloween set up in the yard with some red LED lasers sweeping the path to the door mimicking deadly lasers, of course you would need the fake severed feet just at the start (evil grin!)

[David Somers]

Oooooh! Great idea Paul!!!! Bwahahaha!!!

[Mayo Pardo]

Jay-Marshmallow.jpg

You have to do this within a day or two of the event - I have found that the lasered area tends to grow as it ages, and starts to look pretty bad. They also become quite sticky and will stick to themselves and the plastic from the bag they come in. As for the taste, it's nothing like completely roasting one over a campfire - and in fact it's barely noticeable.

[Melissa Wollenweber]

Pumpkins work surprisingly well! But they are time consuming and take some tricks to engrave evenly. I did successfully cut through some pumpkins. Areas that were extra thick and didn't quite cut through, I just finished off with regular pumpkin carving tools. Got great compliments from people and sent some down to a big promotional event. Good project to have fun with. I'll be putting my pumpkin pictures back up on my website (under construction today, check back soon) but in the meantime, here's some Facebook photos of pumpkins I've done. The Jackalope is my favorite. https://www.facebook.com/PrismoDesig...=page_internal

[John Blazy]

Those are cool, Melissa! Now Im thinking that dried out gourds will cut / engrave pretty well too.

[Matt McCoy]

Here's some original artwork engraved on a pumpkin this past Halloween. It was fun and a bonus: Smelled like pumpkin pie.

tumblr_nx1sbaAIf51rjhp9eo1_1280.jpg

[John Esberg]

My most unique application was with Delrin. I had 1/4" sheet stock. I made raster engraved and then vector cut parts for R&D in a medical device company. It took me 8 hours to make all of the samples. I beat the Chinese prototype parts from mold injection by at least 2 weeks.