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Technical challenges of building DIY laser rust removal gun.

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Psi:
This subject is likely to invoke dire warnings about the risks of eye damage and the like.
But please refrain from posting them, i have worked with lasers before :)

Has anyone looked into building a 'small' DIY laser rust removal gun, or seen others attempt it?

The professional units look to run between 20W and 1000W of pulsed and scanned 1064nm.
Costing around $80k to $400k

Some initial research shows you can buy 10W 1064nm laser diodes from china for $300 or so.
And 300W 1064nm water cooled Q-switched for ~$1000
(sorry, i'm not posting links to super powerful laser diodes. If you cant find it yourself you definitely shouldn't be buying it)

Does anyone know the actual reasons why laser rust removal guns are so expensive?
- Is it just a minefield of regulatory hoops to jump though pushing up the price
- Are they just so novel and work so well they can dictate whatever price they want
- Maybe they own patent on the tech.
etc.
Or is there a part inside that actually costs a significant percentage of the $80k to $400k price?
Maybe it needs a special kind of laser? Q-switched etc. and simply pulsing a diode laser wont work?

Obviously any DIY unit would be more in the 10-50W range rather than 1000W, but even 10W would be useful.

Psi:
Looks like the issue maybe getting a q-switched laser with short enough pulse width to burn off only the rust
All the lasers i'm finding are 400ms or so and i think it needs to be down in the nanosecond range.

Weston:
All Q switched lasers are going to produce pulses in the ns region, it is a population inversion thing and thats how long it takes the dynamics to play out. If you are seeing values in the ms range I assume the listing is wrong or it is not a Q switched laser.

Please PM me the link to the Q switched laser if you don't want to post. I am curious and that sounds too cheap to be true.

Lasers have gotten a lot cheaper but have historically been really expensive. A rust removal system probably has a set of galvos with dielectric mirrors and a f-theta lens, nothing that would be $10k++.  Given the high peak powers needed to remove material like this I am dubious you could use normal diode laser. Once you have a Q switched laser with enough pulse energy you should be able to remove rust, it just becomes a matter of how long you can wait.


SilverSolder:

A gallon of phosphoric acid is cheaper and gives longer lasting results!

coppercone2:
this is useful for an antique furniture dealer or something

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