Laser so easy to build anyone can burn their eyes out

April 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The boys over at North Street Labs built a handheld burning laser and made it look super simple. Well it’s not. We don’t think it’s hard either, but the only reason it looks so easy is because they really know what they’re doing.

The first step was to source the best parts for the application. They’re using a handheld flashlight body which is small but still leaves plenty of room for the components. Next they ordered a quality lens made for the wavelength of the diode, as well as a prefab driver board.

Now the real build starts. They hit the metal lathe and machined a housing for the diode out of some aluminum stock. To marry the parts together they applied some thermal paste, and used a wrench socket to protect the diode from the pressure the vice jaws exert. It slid into place and the whole thing fits perfectly in the flashlight housing. The project wouldn’t be complete without video proof of it burning stuff. You’ll find that after the break.

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Filed Under: laser hacks Tagged With: , , , ,

CoolBot keeps your laser cutter from overheating

April 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Charles] wrote in to share the project he just built for the London Hackerspace. He calls it CoolBot, and as the name indicates it’s responsible for keeping the laser cutter from overheating.

At its heart the system is a water pump. It uses a plastic storage container as a reservoir, with an outfeed from the laser tube coming in the top of the lid. [Charles] mounted a temperature sensor using a 3D printed part to anchor it in the center of the return stream. An Arduino clone uses this sensor, as well as ambient room temperature and laser tube temperature sensors to decide when to switch on the cooling pump. As with any hackerspace add-on, this wouldn’t be complete without Internet connectivity so he included an Ethernet shield in the project box. Speaking of, that box uses panel-mount connectors to keep dust and water away from the electronics. But the lid of the controller box also includes a character LCD for quick reference.

Don’t miss [Charles’] explanation of the system in the video after the break.

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Filed Under: Hackerspaces, laser hacks Tagged With: , , ,

Preparing sushi with the help of lasers

April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

laser-cut-sushi-rolls

It’s not too often that we cover food here on Hackaday, but when we saw how a laser cutter was being used to help enhance the look of sushi, we decided to share. Even if you don’t enjoy sushi, it’s hard not to argue that it can often be more like edible art than simply food. The preparation that goes into well-made sushi is extensive, and this laser cut maki certainly takes things up a notch.

In the wake of the 2011 tsunami many businesses were suffering, including Umino Seaweed whose primary product is nori – the ubiquitous green seaweed wrapper found in/on many sushi rolls. They were looking for something to attract attention to the brand, while remaining respectful to the centuries-old tradition of making sushi.

They sent their request to ad agency I&SBBDO who came up with the fancy looking nori you see above. Each sheet of seaweed is laser cut with traditional Japanese imagery, from the Sakura (cherry blossom) to the Kumikikkou (tortoise shell). We’re not sure if these sheets of nori are actually for sale or have just been put together for solely advertising, either way we think this is a novel and frivolous, but awesome use for a laser cutter. Also, we’re pretty hungry now – anyone up for grabbing some sushi?

[via Make]

Filed Under: laser hacks, news Tagged With: , , ,

[Dino]'s one-year extravaganza is a laser oscillograph

March 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Readers of Hackaday may have noticed the weekly posts featuring whatever [Dino Segovis] of Hack A Week has cooked up in the last seven days. For [Dino]’s one-year anniversary, he’s pulled out all the stops and put together one of his coolest hacks to date. It’s a laser oscillograph that projects waveforms on a screen just like an oscilloscope. What’s more, the entire contraption is built out of a dead hard drive and a few motors and mirrors [Dino] had lying around.

The build uses an old hard drive to draw the vertical component of the waveform. Because hard drives usually use a voice coil to move the heads around the platter, it’s very easy to connect a hard drive directly to the headphone output of [Dino]’s laptop. Playing a sine wave on his computer makes the drive heads move up and down, but [Dino] still another dimension. For that, he used a rotating mirror that reflects the wave onto a paper screen.

[Dino]’s finished build isn’t that much different from an oscilloscope or projection TV. It’s possible for [Dino] to improve upon his build and make a genuine vector display with the addition of additional electronics and optics, but we’re not expecting that until at least the two-year anniversary.

Check out [Dino]’s build video after the break.

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Filed Under: laser hacks Tagged With: , ,

Following faces with OpenCV and Arduino

March 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD4uFD7j0AU&w=470]

[Marco] has had some fun with OpenCV in the area of face tracking. Using an older laser project, he has cobbled together a system that will track a face and put a laser on it. While he is just using this as a proof of concept, it goes without saying that you probably shouldn’t mount a laser on a face tracker. However, stuffing this into a myKeepon wouldn’t be a horrible thing.

[Marco] shares the process of getting the OpenCV bit working in this writeup, you’ll have to refer back to his laser gun project for the physical build.

 

[via Adafruit]

 

Filed Under: laser hacks, software hacks Tagged With: ,

Print your own Supercaps

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Gil] recently wrote in to tell us about some awesome research going on at UCLA. Apparently by layering some oxidized graphite onto a DVD and tossing it into a lightscribe burner, it’s possible to print your own super capacitors; some pretty high capacity ones at that.

For those that are unaware, supercapcaitors are typically made using two electrolyte soaked, activated carbon plates separated by an ion permeable film. Since activated carbon has an incredible surface area huge energy densities can be reached, in some cases 1kJ/lb.

Laser-formed graphite sponge replaces the activated carbon in the researchers’ printed capacitors. A video after the break discusses  the whole process in moderate detail, meanwhile greater detail can be found in their two papers on the subject.

First one to print a transistor gets a bag of mosfets!

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Filed Under: chemistry hacks, laser hacks Tagged With: ,
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