there's a few commercial high powered lasers that are hand held and can start fires in the couple hundred buck range. i've met some astronomers who use them to point at the sky for teaching stuff.

Sure, like from this place, but I was musing about whether it might be possible to cobble something together from salvage. Like, carefully aiming 4 DVD lasers at the same point, maybe. The better to laser-etch metal.

You can build what wicked sells for $2000+ for under $100...
wickedlasers is the bestbuy of the laser scene... Everyone else hates them too...

Yes, I do believe I like the sound of that.

Or maybe less, since I have a large scary laser in my garage right now. Complete with a couple of feet of optical fiber fitted to the beam emitter.

watercooled?

maybe drop a commercial aluminum heatsink (with some heatsink paste) and drop the thing into a recirc water bath?
depends on the operating temps of it tho.. and then you might have to move all that fluid around in the gantry head.
ick.

how do they cool industrial lasercutters?

No, from what I've heard you've got the makings of a $10,000+ beast there. Wickedlasers sells expensive laser pointers up to ones like what I make, which they sell for up to $2000, only difference, fancy flashlightish enclosures.


Nick, the reason I mentioned you and your shop is machining some sort of block to set the diode into to effectively transfer the heat from the source to the heatsink.

Heatsink... or waterblock. Then, the water flow rate, tubing diameter & material, etc. could be figured out. I imagine the problem would be on a similar scale to watercooling a CPU in a high-end computer. Of course, that idea could be confirmed (or shot down) if there were some performance specs available...

Equipment I'm willing to donate:

90A arc welder (best used with 1/16" electrodes)

welding helmet

pair of modular light aluminum shelves, 5' x 30" x 1'

I also have other bits laying about; for example, a couple of old D'Arsonval multimeters that I believe use C-size batteries. I can also scrounge materials as well- steel and aluminum (tube, angle, and bar) being most common.

I'm intending to register as a member ASAP, but remaining a permanent member is a tough one on a student's budget. What I'm hoping is to arrange a quid pro quo/barter system type of agreement- I also intend to fabricate tools/equipment for the shop as well.

I would also propose that we need to start tracking where the tools/equipment are coming from, value, etc. I'll put together a quick mysql db and php code for data entry and reporting? Anyone want to help inventory?

-John