1kw Laser Cleaning Gun Too Cool For Words

Looks great. I keep wondering how it works exactly, why does it remove paint and dirt, but not underlaying material.

Maybe a selected wavelength only

Yes, it probably explodes any moisture in the paint and dirt, helping to erase it. It looks like it strobes the light in a pattern similar to a paint spray gun, so it doesn't just burn through any given place. I'd be willing to bet it takes awhile to get used to using it on different substrates. It sure beats chem dips, though, doesn't it?

They show a guy in ordinary clothes using this. I bet that he has a helmet on, so he isn't blinded by the first focused glint.

Sunlight is about a kilowatt per square meter. If the actual beam is a millimeter by a millimeter, the power density is a million to one over sunlight.

And that cleaning beam can probably cut fingers off. Or clean to the bone, at least at first.

And the laser is not in that handheld thing, which must be fed by a big fiber bundle.

Joe Gwinn

It is just a function of absorption at the laser wavelength, melting point, heat conductivity, film strength (some measure of how solid the material is) and a few other minor contributors. A "dark" surface at the laser wavelength will efficiently absorb the light, converting it to heat, which will then either dissipate into the bulk if the conductivity is good, or raise the surface temperature high enough fast enough to melt or at least weaken the bond to the subsurface plus expand the surface causing the surface layer to spall off if the conductivity and heat capacity are low enough. If there is a layer of dark dirt on top of shiny metal that reflects well at the laser wavelength the dirt gets blasted off while the metal is just warmed up a little but not damaged. Focus the laser into a small spot and the metal will also get drilled into - notice the "spot" is a strip that looks like maybe 1/16" wide by maybe 2"? That keeps the peak power below the damage threshold for metals, I'm guessing. What they don't show in that video is the laser itself, a cart maybe 3' x 3' x 4' from the pics on their website, and while I'm not up on the latest efficiencies to get a kw average power out of a NdYAG laser is going to take at least 10 kw if not 20 kw from the wall plug. That's 91 amps of single phase 220 V, similar to a 200-300 amp welder (so 3 phase and higher voltage would be better). I just wish they had a price on the website.

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

"Ignoramus23944" wrote in message news:LcydnQIsp8ENm3DPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

On 2014-02-01, Larry Jaques wrote:

Looks great. I keep wondering how it works exactly, why does it remove paint and dirt, but not underlaying material.

That's fricken scary!

"Ignoramus23944" wrote in message news:LcydnQIsp8ENm3DPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

Good question. I tried to learn how to use an excimer laser to dig into an integrated circuit but never got the hang of it. I couldn't completely sever a metallization trace on an upper layer without gouging into the one below it. jsw

If he doesn't have at least a pair of welding goggles on, he's a fool.

So it instantly "fades" the paint away? I see.

It wouldn't be pretty to see, would it?

What? My massively strong (

Note that what it is cleaning off is all black -- maximum absorption of the energy from the laser. I used to test a NdYAG pulsed laser (near IR -- 1.06 uM IIRC) by blowing printed text off boxes and labels. It would do nothing to the white areas, but would blast off the black ink, leaving a slightly roughened area. And you *needed* protective goggles whenever that beastie was fired up. Even more so with the cleaning shown, as it cleaned to a shiny reflective surface. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

What kind of power control did you have over the laser beam?

And was the color of the PCB somewhat responsible for the problem in control? I know some color bandwidths absorb more of certain types/spectrums of lasers. Was eximer the proper color, or just the only one they had for you to use to do the job? Which gas/color?

Tell us more, por favor!

The ICs were still on the wafer. There were 3 wavelengths and a pulse timing control. At that point I didn't understand integrated circuit construction very well and was unsure what I was seeing anyway. jsw

That explains your results pretty well. ;) What was under the traces, a more volatile substrate than the trace itself?

Wasn't that in the Bible? "Know Thine Enemy, iffen ya wanna lase it correctly!"

Me, too.

The first thing _I_ thought of when I viewed this clip was, "I wish I could get rid of mildew on shower curtains and tile walls that easily". I _don't_ think I want to try bleaching my shirt collars with one.

Anyone have any sense of how much power _that_ would require?

Oh, and is the laser in the video actually scanning, or is that a line laser? ( Or can one tell? )

Jes' curious.

Frank McKenney

They say on their website that it is a q switched diode pumped NdYAG laser. If you listen close you can hear a tic tic tic simultaneous with each line of cleaning. I took each tic to be a firing of the laser (so maybe 2-5 hz?), and then some cylindrical optics plus shaping the fiber bundle to produce the line shaped "spot".

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

Me, too.

The first thing _I_ thought of when I viewed this clip was, "I wish I could get rid of mildew on shower curtains and tile walls that easily". I _don't_ think I want to try bleaching my shirt collars with one.

Anyone have any sense of how much power _that_ would require?

Oh, and is the laser in the video actually scanning, or is that a line laser? ( Or can one tell? )

Jes' curious.

Frank McKenney

...and wire brushes too!

That would make cutting the cable very dangerous.

I wonder if it can clean my oven and stovetop.