Lars Berntzon wrote:That would be even better of course, but the quick checks I have made gives that getting a co2 laser and a laser-head will cost quite a lot.
Then you need some mirror arrangements for directing the light, or do you place the laser tube directly on the Z-axsis location?
Also, isn't co2 much more dangerous than a DVD-laser? They are in the range of 40-100 w, whereas a DVD-laser is probably less than 1 watt?
Regards, Lars
A 40 watt tube is about $100 and another $100 for a power supply. Pretty darn cheap. You use mirrors to bounce the beam to the spot.
A CO2 laser is much safer. The wavelength is far IR so it does not penetrate most things that we consider clear. For example glass, acrylic, and polycarbonate are all 100% opaque to this wavelength. So it is easy to build an enclosure for it. It also cannot penetrate your eye past the cornea, it is impossible to get retinal damage.
Visible lasers suck for cutting most things and diode lasers are the worst of the bunch. They have horrible beam characteristics that make the spot oblong without correction optics and then they are very difficult to focus down to a small spot, especially the more powerful diodes as they tend to want to run multimode.
Plus at the low power of a DVD or bluray diode you would have such a slow machine it would be almost useless. Light materials would be difficult to cut as well.