burn

[owhite]

Got my first serious burn from the laser today. My hand was pulling out a part while the system was running (might be hard to believe but there are many occasions where you have to do this or quit the run). Anyhow, the oxygen was on, the laser was penetrating the metal, and I got muuuUUUuch to close.

Non-comfortable.

owen

[jwstolk]

Just a warning:
I wouldn't worry about my fingers. (i have plenty of those) I would enclose the whole thing
in an non-see-through box only to protect my eyes. Even of you don't cut (very reflective!)
metal, plastics can be shiny to ! and I expect that all your clamps are painted matt-black ?
1 mW lasers are considered "save" because most people have a < 0.25 second
reflex that closes there eye lids. If you have a 100 W laser, you have 0.0000025 seconds
to close your eyes, meaning: you will be to late, even if an object only reflects 1% of the
laser power. you do wear glasses matching the laser wavelength do you ?
jaap.

[zoltan]

Hi OWHITE,

The laser cnc is built by you? I have built until now two cnc machines and I really consider to build a plasma cnc and a laser, but with both of them I do not know where to start. I was thinking to start laser as I understood here on forum that you can buy a laser from China to up 500$ which not cheap for me, but is not so prohibitive like a plasmacutter starting at 1500$. Could you, please, give me some guidance how to build it?

Thank you,

Zoltan

[owhite]

zoltan,

have a look at posts in the CNCzone Laser Cutting Machines forum, and peruse this site:

http://nilno.com/laser_dir/blogger.html

and then feel free to post questions.

owen

[toneV8]

What contains laser cutting system like: laser head.......

[zoltan]

Thank you. I will ask a lot of questions.

Zoltan

[ger21]

Originally Posted by owhite Non-comfortable. owen

That hurts just lookin' at it.

[Laserman2006]

Originally Posted by jwstolk Just a warning: I wouldn't worry about my fingers.

I would. A buddy at work lost his thumbs today on the press brake. You can never be to safe around machinery no matter how low powered it is.

[jwstolk]

Originally Posted by Laserman2006 I would. A buddy at work lost his thumbs today on the press brake. You can never be to safe around machinery no matter how low powered it is.

I agree completely, but I was taking about lasers. You can do a lot of damage to your eyes with a laser beam that would barely warm up your fingers. Light reflected from whatever you are cutting (or shiny tools) won't damage you skin but can still damage your eyes. 0.001W is considered "safe", but only if you close your eye within 0.25 sec.)