My "new tool"

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btboone

btboone

Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2004
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Location
Roswell, GA, USA.
Here's my latest. This is a fiber laser that I built to work on my Tormach mill. It has a rotary axis and a flat cutting area. I've looked for years for the right laser and finally gave up and built it myself. I wanted to be able to cut titanium rings with a fine kerf, yet be able to go through thicker material and to be able to engrave as well. These are normally conflicting constraints, and until recently, I haven't been able to find a laser that could do it (at any cost.) I was very close to pulling the trigger on a Chinese YAG laser that had a 650 watt output, but I realized that it took 30,000 watts to power it! That's more than the rest of my shop combined and was not going to happen. I had read about the crazy efficiency of fiber lasers and assumed that there would be no way to be able to get one, especially to do the stuff I was looking to do. It turns out there's a new technology out there that allows a fiber laser to be made to burn continuously, like a CO2 laser, or it can be made to fire in pulses, where the peak power can be on the order of 10 times that rating if the pulses are kept short enough. This allowed me to get the 450 watt continuous or 4500 watt pulsed laser. Being that pulses make better cuts without turning the metal to a molton mess, that's exactly what I needed. All this while using about the power of a heat gun. In testing, we were able to go through 7mm of titanium through the side of a thick ring blank, but the beam continued through the other 7mm side as well! This while "only" using 3000 watts. It has roughly the same wavelength as my YAG laser engraver, which is 80 watts, and that wavelength is very well tuned to cut metal.

The laser required the building of a full enclosure with a special laser glass window tuned to that frequency and interlocked doors. I only saw one system that was somewhat comparable, but it was continuous mode only, and has such a fine beam that it couldn't get through more than 2.5mm of titanium. It was made to cut stents. That one was priced at $650K and wouldn't do all that I wanted to do. Did I mention that I have searched for years for this!? Engraving takes pulsing and some fancy tricks. We were able to engrave titanium in trials I had at the company's applications lab. I'm a pretty happy camper.
 

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Now that's something that will make a huge impact on your productivity as well as the overall design completion of your vision for your rings! When you said you MADE this I envisioned the scene in Ironman when he's creating the new element. Awesome! Can't wait to see some of the new work
 
Here's a shot that shows the laser itself. That's the box on the right about 3 feet high.
 

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Bruce, I wish you'd told me all the stuff you wanted to do - you could have just come over and used my laser!! :biggrin::rolleyes::redface::frown::eek::confused:
 
The ring in the picture is a version of this; a zipper. I'm sure there's some sort of "two become one" marketing blurb that could sell such a ring, but I just did it because it was fun!
 

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That's a beautiful machine Bruce and kudos for having the brains and ability to build it !!:eek: The next time someone whines about CNC made pens, I'll point them to this thread!!! :biggrin:

Considering that the 'Almost good enough one' was around $650K, then surely you could make more money by building a second machine and selling it instead of the original having to recoup all your costs?

BTW.......I think that it's about time you made another pen!!:tongue:
 
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