Thanks for your kind words! I just love to see the code come to good use. It is not that much code - but the amount of work put into each line for signal generation is insane. And I love the PCB! Hope to get to populate one for myself soon :) Great video!
You are welcome! I can see the sheer volume of work in your code! The timers are not for the faint of heart! Let me know when the PCB's turn up, I would love to see them being used as well! I have designed an SMD version of it as well, and once I have double checked the layout and had it produced, I will fire those up on GitHub as well.
Another brilliant video. I've been playing your entire laser playlist all day. Thanks for all your hard work and brilliant insights, I keep learning new stuff daily!
Very nice. I bought a few years ago a Coherent GEM 100W Laser and a power supply for it and I had to run it but I did not have time until today. I even wrote a program in assembler on Arduino to convert Gcode to XY2-100. This year I was also going to use OPAL like you did, because it seemed more advanced. Congratulations on your success with this laser. Maybe it will motivate me to fix mine.
Now that I hack together PCBs on a semi-regular basis, I will not willingly provide criticism (construtive or otherwise) on other people's work. Much respect, Les!
I supposed it isn't so much engraving the glass as it is leaving a trail of fractures. I suspect it may be easy to break the glass along the laser-"etched" path, so this could be used to cut out oddly-shaped pieces of glass.
Super cool, the opengalvo software looks awesome. The glass thing is weird and also a little worrying that marks appear a few seconds later, means the glass has lots of internal stress which could see it shatter while you're handling it.
The way glass acts when you engrave it, it's heat that causes stresses and internal cracks in the glass. It's not that weird that it does what it does.
Hey Les, despite JLCPCB and the like, I can't but get the desire to make my own boards at home. However, applying the etch mask drives me nuts. Do you have some idea of how a laser engraver could be used to remove a film of paint from some FR4 copper stock to expose the area for etching with the level of detail required for fine PCB traces? I would be most interested to see if this is possible, and if so, how to go about it.
Sure, JLCPCB is great if you want professional PCB's and I am very happy with their service. I do however understand the need to rattle out a prototype at home real quick. I figure if you sprayed a bare copper board with a thin layer of black paint, then lasered off the non-copper areas, it will probably etch ok. For fine traces you might find this is a trial and error job, and ti is more likely the etching process where this falls down.
Thanks, @@LesLaboratory. I suppose my question is more "Can we hack it from salvaged gear?" more so than will it work. I'm guessing as long as the coating applied ablates well, the outcome will be grand. But you make a good point; buying a laser engraver and have done with it is probably the way to go.
Im pressed with the detail achieved. Is there simply a lens to focus prior to going to the galvos or is there a ftheta/scan lens to better accommodate flat field correction at the sample plane?
Thanks! There are two lens assemblies in the head. The output lens is an F-theta lens, and internally there is a collimating lens for the CO2 laser. The teardown of this head is here:ruclips.net/video/_i1J7TGpPnQ/видео.html
My thoughts, exactly. I just emailed Zenodilodon to ask whether this could be accomplished with Kvant's 'beam brush' lens assembly. That's also who pointed me to Les' Lab, BTW. 😎
@@TheOleHermit Awesome, pass on my regards! He is a good Guy. So what you are thinking is an ILDA Galvo, with an F-theta lens on the output, and some watts of Laser light behind it? It might be doable. Assuming they are closed loop galvos and the thing is linear enough, you might get reasonable results. That said XY2-100 Galvos complete with a suitable lens seems to be available relatively inexpensively. Note, the lens in mine is about 1 inch in diameter. If I was buying new, I would be going 2 inches or larger.
@@LesLaboratory "Awesome, pass on my regards!" You betcha! "He is a good Guy." Among the best. " So what you are thinking is an ILDA Galvo, with an F-theta lens on the output, and some watts of Laser light behind it?" If I knew what an F-theta lens is, that would be exactly what I'm thinking. lol But, if the lens maintains focus, while scanning a flat surface, then it's always better to just KISS, w/o the additional electro-mechanical complexity. I already have the projector and imaging capability. Time to RTFM on F-theta lenses. Thanks for your great videos. 💨
The small black spots that appear, is it because the galvo stops for a second but the laser is keps on? Maybe some tOn/tOff timing that needs adjusting?
Yes exactly. This video is "first light" and some fine tuning in terms of speeds and power is required. The GCode is generated automatically, so perhaps some adjustment is required there.
Yep, all you need to do is calibrate the axes in lightburn. There are instructions here: docs.lightburnsoftware.com/UI/MachineSettings.html If you look on YT for "Calibrate axes lightburn" you will find video tutorials if you prefer those. During calibration cut a square of at least 4 inches on a side, to ensure calibration is accurate.
Thanks! It worked out really well. I think at this stage it's time to build this thing a proper enclosure and an adjustable stage for mounting workpieces.
Glass may be easier to work with if you look at it as more of a mechanical process where you are trying to shatter off glass from the surface as a series of small pits, so that would require multiple passes of very rapid, short duration and higher powered pulses? Tap tap tap.... This may reduce the wider effects of heating and the cracks that fan out from lines and points. Take a look at your first test under a microscope.
Absolutely. I have had this under the microscope already. There is a clearly defined melt path, from which small stress cracks radiate from at regular intervals. Unfortunately the CO2 Laser is CW, but pre-heating the workpiece might help. I could always pull my old YAG out of storage, though it could probably do with a complete strip and clean!
That rings a bell! If I recall a Fiber Laser was used. I suspect at this wavelength, all of the incident light (9.3um) would be absorbed by the water. That said, I see some cool experiments on the horizon!
See Applied Science’s video on cutting ceramics with a laser, he briefly touches on cutting glass but comes to the conclusion that the microfractures are too imprecise and lead to unwanted cracking. Even just for engraving you can see that it’s not exactly sticking to its lines.
For sure, the cracks as spiderlike, and occur regularly along the track. That said, there is bound to be a way of doing it. maybe preheating the piece, or some other method...
Not so random, it is repeatable, but I have not spent any time debugging to see what causes it. The author of the program has updated the code, so it may well be that this is fixed.
Thanks for your kind words! I just love to see the code come to good use. It is not that much code - but the amount of work put into each line for signal generation is insane. And I love the PCB! Hope to get to populate one for myself soon :) Great video!
You are welcome! I can see the sheer volume of work in your code! The timers are not for the faint of heart!
Let me know when the PCB's turn up, I would love to see them being used as well! I have designed an SMD version of it as well, and once I have double checked the layout and had it produced, I will fire those up on GitHub as well.
Les, are you selling any?
the performance of that galvo is incredible.
They super fast and precise, it's a shame the coatings are for IR only!
Another brilliant video. I've been playing your entire laser playlist all day. Thanks for all your hard work and brilliant insights, I keep learning new stuff daily!
Thanks! There is much more to come 😉
Very nice. I bought a few years ago a Coherent GEM 100W Laser and a power supply for it and I had to run it but I did not have time until today. I even wrote a program in assembler on Arduino to convert Gcode to XY2-100. This year I was also going to use OPAL like you did, because it seemed more advanced. Congratulations on your success with this laser. Maybe it will motivate me to fix mine.
I am glad you found it useful! Daniel's code is fantastic, and works really well with this machine.
Now that I hack together PCBs on a semi-regular basis, I will not willingly provide criticism (construtive or otherwise) on other people's work. Much respect, Les!
Thanks! I might be my greatest critic. The PCB is nice, but I think I could make it neater! An SMD version in in the works. Cheers!
I supposed it isn't so much engraving the glass as it is leaving a trail of fractures. I suspect it may be easy to break the glass along the laser-"etched" path, so this could be used to cut out oddly-shaped pieces of glass.
For sure, there is a tiny melt path with tiny fractures radiating out. An interesting idea, I should give it a go!
Super cool, the opengalvo software looks awesome.
The glass thing is weird and also a little worrying that marks appear a few seconds later, means the glass has lots of internal stress which could see it shatter while you're handling it.
True! OpenGalvo/OPAL is amazingly good! It is an interesting effect though, I wonder what uses it could be put to...
The way glass acts when you engrave it, it's heat that causes stresses and internal cracks in the glass. It's not that weird that it does what it does.
Fabulous result ! looks great and hat's of to the software, shame about the dodgy PCB LOL ! ...cheers.
The software is way cool! Opens up a lot of possibilities! :-D
Hey Les, despite JLCPCB and the like, I can't but get the desire to make my own boards at home. However, applying the etch mask drives me nuts. Do you have some idea of how a laser engraver could be used to remove a film of paint from some FR4 copper stock to expose the area for etching with the level of detail required for fine PCB traces? I would be most interested to see if this is possible, and if so, how to go about it.
Sure, JLCPCB is great if you want professional PCB's and I am very happy with their service.
I do however understand the need to rattle out a prototype at home real quick. I figure if you sprayed a bare copper board with a thin layer of black paint, then lasered off the non-copper areas, it will probably etch ok. For fine traces you might find this is a trial and error job, and ti is more likely the etching process where this falls down.
Thanks, @@LesLaboratory. I suppose my question is more "Can we hack it from salvaged gear?" more so than will it work. I'm guessing as long as the coating applied ablates well, the outcome will be grand. But you make a good point; buying a laser engraver and have done with it is probably the way to go.
Wow. I'm green with _envy._
Im pressed with the detail achieved. Is there simply a lens to focus prior to going to the galvos or is there a ftheta/scan lens to better accommodate flat field correction at the sample plane?
Thanks! There are two lens assemblies in the head. The output lens is an F-theta lens, and internally there is a collimating lens for the CO2 laser. The teardown of this head is here:ruclips.net/video/_i1J7TGpPnQ/видео.html
My thoughts, exactly. I just emailed Zenodilodon to ask whether this could be accomplished with Kvant's 'beam brush' lens assembly.
That's also who pointed me to Les' Lab, BTW. 😎
@@TheOleHermit Awesome, pass on my regards! He is a good Guy. So what you are thinking is an ILDA Galvo, with an F-theta lens on the output, and some watts of Laser light behind it? It might be doable. Assuming they are closed loop galvos and the thing is linear enough, you might get reasonable results. That said XY2-100 Galvos complete with a suitable lens seems to be available relatively inexpensively. Note, the lens in mine is about 1 inch in diameter. If I was buying new, I would be going 2 inches or larger.
@@LesLaboratory "Awesome, pass on my regards!"
You betcha! "He is a good Guy."
Among the best.
" So what you are thinking is an ILDA Galvo, with an F-theta lens on the output, and some watts of Laser light behind it?"
If I knew what an F-theta lens is, that would be exactly what I'm thinking. lol
But, if the lens maintains focus, while scanning a flat surface, then it's always better to just KISS, w/o the additional electro-mechanical complexity.
I already have the projector and imaging capability. Time to RTFM on F-theta lenses.
Thanks for your great videos.
💨
super high quality content, thank you.
Thanks! :-)
The small black spots that appear, is it because the galvo stops for a second but the laser is keps on? Maybe some tOn/tOff timing that needs adjusting?
Yes exactly. This video is "first light" and some fine tuning in terms of speeds and power is required. The GCode is generated automatically, so perhaps some adjustment is required there.
Excellent work. Most impressive toy.
Its' way cool! There are all sorts of cool stuff that can be done with this! There are plans in the works!
Great work!!! I m facing problem, when i print square x is shorter y is ok. Could you help what is the prb?
Yep, all you need to do is calibrate the axes in lightburn. There are instructions here: docs.lightburnsoftware.com/UI/MachineSettings.html
If you look on YT for "Calibrate axes lightburn" you will find video tutorials if you prefer those. During calibration cut a square of at least 4 inches on a side, to ensure calibration is accurate.
Awesome Job those are some awesome results
Thanks! It worked out really well. I think at this stage it's time to build this thing a proper enclosure and an adjustable stage for mounting workpieces.
@@LesLaboratory yea it sure did easy to drive also with just a teensy and some generic parts love it
Great stuff Les really Cool watching it burn the image kinda like slow motion ;-)
It's awesome! it can also mark at super high speed as well.
XY2-100 in converted to analog signals before going to galvos? Is any kind of digital to analog is using in scanhead!
Superb
Thanks 🤗
Glass may be easier to work with if you look at it as more of a mechanical process where you are trying to shatter off glass from the surface as a series of small pits, so that would require multiple passes of very rapid, short duration and higher powered pulses? Tap tap tap.... This may reduce the wider effects of heating and the cracks that fan out from lines and points. Take a look at your first test under a microscope.
Absolutely. I have had this under the microscope already. There is a clearly defined melt path, from which small stress cracks radiate from at regular intervals. Unfortunately the CO2 Laser is CW, but pre-heating the workpiece might help. I could always pull my old YAG out of storage, though it could probably do with a complete strip and clean!
Now for some tattoos.
I am sure it would make pretty scars :-D
It think it was either Breaking Taps or Applied Science who did glass under water.
That rings a bell! If I recall a Fiber Laser was used. I suspect at this wavelength, all of the incident light (9.3um) would be absorbed by the water. That said, I see some cool experiments on the horizon!
@@LesLaboratory Oh yeah, I didn't think about that :-/
Very cool!!!
Thanks! I suspect it can do other cool stuff as well. watch this space!
Could you please provide me with the source code to load onto Teensy 4.0?
See Applied Science’s video on cutting ceramics with a laser, he briefly touches on cutting glass but comes to the conclusion that the microfractures are too imprecise and lead to unwanted cracking. Even just for engraving you can see that it’s not exactly sticking to its lines.
For sure, the cracks as spiderlike, and occur regularly along the track. That said, there is bound to be a way of doing it. maybe preheating the piece, or some other method...
Some random dot at those lines
Not so random, it is repeatable, but I have not spent any time debugging to see what causes it. The author of the program has updated the code, so it may well be that this is fixed.