| Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff |
| Technical challenges of building DIY laser rust removal gun. |
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| james_s:
Lasers are certainly cool, but a gallon of Evaporust is only about $25, it's reusable for quite a while and does a good job. Electrolysis is simple and cheap for larger items. |
| duak:
I didn't realize these things took rust off too. I saw a video where one unit cleaned a cylinder head up pronto. I worked with laser devices that delivered over 20 W of near IR at the film plane to expose printing plates. If you looked at the media while it was working you'd see a white spot about 2 mm wide. Depending on the media type, there could be stuff blown off in little flakes or ribbons. I think I have a bar laser with one bad facet somewhere. I know that kind of laser has enough snot to burn holes thru fabric if properly focussed. FWIW, here's what I think about the costs: I'd bet there's at least $10K of parts for a low power unit. I see there are at least a dozen companies making these things. I don't know how big the market is or how it's divided up. Some companies seem quite small. I wonder if the light source is an off the shelf part or custom. I shepherded two products through the US regulatory agency for laser products (CDRH) about 20 years ago. It wasn't all that difficult - nowhere as difficult as getting approval for medical devices. At that time, I did some tests and submitted some reports and that was that. I didn't need to send a sample device for testing. It's probably tightened up since then but since this device is Class 4 and inherently hazardous I'd expect that training in proper usage is a part of the cost. I hope they've figured out some way to prevent the user from accidently exfoliating someone. If not, maybe they've set aside money for good lawyers. My experience with lasers and optics handling real power is that they degrade or even die for non-obvious reasons. I expect that dropping the head on the floor will not do the galvanometer any good. Any contamination on an internal optical surface with a high power density is bad news. Dust gets pushed there by the laser beam so we had clean rooms and protocols for assembly and integration of our products. After seeing how workers use tools in a machine shop, I'd say that a laser cleaning system should be designed to take abuse. To make something reliable for an industrial workplace takes some real engineering, testing and money. I remember a talk by one of my colleagues who used to work for Leica optical systems. He designed an eyepiece for an optical sight for use in a tank to aim the gun. He had a prototype handy, so to show how tough it was, he smashed it down on the edge of a table. The whole assembly had to be able to handle being stepped on by the gunner as they got in or out their seat. |
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