Boss Laser

onsdag den 10. marts 2021 kl. 01.51.52 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:

do not catch laser reflection with remaining eye ....

The probability of injury is low, but it did come with appropriate safety glasses.

When I was leaving they were trying it to blast the copper off FR4.

That is indeed cool as hell. I want one.

-- john, KE5FX

On a sunny day (Tue, 09 Mar 2021 16:51:44 -0800) it happened John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Mouthcap detected

I get: .mp4 files are supported but something went wrong. J270 Boss Laser Inside Box.mp4 · 2.24 MB

What happens to readabiity if it gets scratched over time?

Now about laser cutting of solder paste stencils? You'd do better with steel (or stainless shim stock) rather than trying copper, with most lasers.

On a sunny day (Wed, 10 Mar 2021 08:51:31 -0000 (UTC)) it happened John Doe snipped-for-privacy@message.header wrote in <s2a1aj$3pg$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Well download failed.

But OK tried in Chrome on raspi4 4GB, same error but download worked, so I have the video now. I may try my power laser on some colored alu some time:

Cheaper if i works :-)

There are fairly cheap Chinese versions, but we went for quality and support.

This will save us making a ton of custom polycarb stickers.

That should work, especially for plastic ones for short or proto runs. I'll suggest that to my production guy.

The steel production stencils that we buy are supplied in a big aluminum frame, so it's probably easier to keep ordering them out.

We also buy custom tiny stencils that look like little spatulas. Those are used for rework. We might make those as needed.

It's anodize, got to be tougher than polycarb labels.

Hey, people should treat our beautiful products with respect.

What wavelength and power level is it using to do that?

1066nm NdYAG or something else?

Beware of backscattered laser light that you can't see.

1064, apparently a fiber laser.

They use safety glasses.

30 watts.

Really cool. I see that they turned it on without any target, it says "pULse" on the machine bed :-)

Nice product, I want one too, although I don't have a use for it

Does everyone in the room have glasses? Do you lock the doors so no one can unknowingly enter while it's on? Sign that lights up on the outside of the door when it's on? Windows covered so no reflected beam escapes the room? I don't know what all the current OSHA rules are, but I'm pretty shocked it's not in a light tight cabinet. Might want to run it past your liability insurance agent to make sure you are covered and if they have any extra requirements buried in the fine print of your policy. Better to find out before any accident, than to find out too late that they won't cover something.

I'm no expert but I have worked with and around some high powered lasers years ago and have gone through more than one school or company required safety class. Enough to know that questions must be asked even if I don't know all of them or many of the answers. I'm sure the requirements haven't gotten less stringent. A minute searching OSHA's web site found this page:

John said in a previous post that it is a 30 watt laser, which makes it a class IV laser. Scroll down to section VI Control Measures and Safety Programs, about halfway down the page, and look at all the different requirements marked with an "X" in in column IV - X means Shall. The simplest way to handle things is with a protective housing that fully encloses the beam and reflections, which is what all those 30-100 watt CO2 laser engraver/cutters do. Without a protective enclosure the room becomes the enclosure, hence all my questions above. Some states have their own (OSHA approved) rules but I don't know if California does that or not (Maryland where I am does) so John might face a slightly different set of requirements.

I don't know how OSHA divides up responsibility between manufacturer, seller, and end user but I bet those open CNC 3D printers or routers with laser attachments have some kind of disclaimer in the manual that says it's the user's responsibility to make sure they operate them in a safe manner, and that might be enough to allow the sale (I'm also not a lawyer, but I have built a CW 50 watt CO2 laser for fun once :-)).

Remember that the laser is focused on the workpiece, probably with a ZnSe lens. Once it scatters off the workpiece, it acts less like a death ray and more like a 30-watt light bulb.

Still, I have to agree that I'd rather not have an invisible 30 watt laser running outside an enclosure of some sort.

-- john, KE5FX

But immediately above the workpiece the beam energy density is seriously dangerous.

The way it scatters off bright anodised aluminium metal might not be so benign as off a piece of dark rock like basalt either. You can't see the invisible radiation so there is no glare to warn you.

We were running quadrupled 266nm UV in a beam guide with similar power of NdYAG as the pump rather than actual beam. Much tighter focus which was the reason for the shorter wavelength and forming a plasma from solid materials for direct laser ablation sampling. It was all carefully interlocked to prevent operation without the safety shields up.

At the very least it wants to be in a corner with opaque screens so that you can't ever see the laser impact zone with unprotected eyes. You should check US safety legislation - I'm pretty sure it would not be legal to operate in the UK without filters and safe system of work.

At that sort of power I reckon it should probably be interlocked with protective screens around it that are opaque to the laser wavelength.

You don't really notice laser burns until you have a retinal image scan done. The brain is very good at filling in small gaps.

One of my retinas has been heavily lasered to weld it to my eyeball, so I have more and bigger blind spots than usual. I don't notice.

My eyes focus at different distances, which I don't notice either.

Point being, even if it's a pure specular reflection, it's not focused anywhere except the workpiece. The beam will be very broad everywhere else.

-- john, KE5FX