Handheld laser. How to make a powerful laser

It is possible to create a homemade building level, when creating lighting effects when decorating a home disco, for an additional rear signal for cars, motorcycles, bicycles, etc.

A laser diode is a semiconductor crystal made in the form of a thin rectangular plate. The beam passes through a collecting lens and represents a thin line; when it intersects with the surface, we see a point. To obtain a visible line, you can install a cylindrical lens in front of the laser beam. The refracted ray will look like a fan.

The proposed homemade product can be made quickly and inexpensively even by a novice radio amateur.

I made it from a 5mW laser, 3V supply voltage from AliExpress. Despite the low power of the laser emitter, it is necessary to observe basic safety precautions not to direct the beam into the eyes.

Watch the entire manufacturing process in the video:

List of tools and materials
-laser emitter 5mW, 3V (link to laser)
-screwdriver; scissors;
- soldering iron;
-cambric; foil textolite;
- two 1.5V batteries;
- connecting wires; battery compartment housing with headlamp power button;
-5 Ohm resistor;
-LED with a transparent bulb;
- strip of tin.

Step one. Making a laser board.

From a small piece of foil PCB we make a scarf for mounting the laser. We solder a piece of tin to the PCB, having previously bent it along the laser body. Then we insert the laser itself into the clamp (it should fit tightly). On the side of the beam output we solder the LED (if you have a transparent glass tube, you can use a piece 5mm long) on the back side of the board and by bending the legs we adjust its position relative to the laser to get a bright and contrasting visible line. All that remains is to place the board with the laser in a suitable housing. We make a rectangular window in the battery compartment housing with the headlamp switch. To power this laser emitter, a voltage of 3 V is sufficient. We install two 1.5 V batteries in the battery compartment housing. In place of the third battery, we install our board with the laser. We solder the wires respectively onto two batteries and connect them through a 5 Ohm resistor to the push-button switch. If desired, the laser can be powered from a battery and a buck converter board can be used. To extend the life of the laser diode, I set the voltage to 2.8 volts and the current to 15-18 mA.

Step two. Manufacturing of building level.
Based on this homemade product you can make a laser building level. The first option is to attach the homemade body to an industrial level (of course, you need to precisely adjust the position of the beam). The second option is to attach the body of a homemade laser to a piece of foam plastic and place this structure in a container of water. The water level will always be parallel to the horizon. Check the position of the laser line with the industrial level. The further the laser is from the surface, the longer the visible line.

This is how the weekend design turned out. It was interesting to see the refraction of a laser beam with different lenses. How to use this homemade product is your choice. The process itself was, at least for me, interesting. A beginner can make such a timer on his own without spending a lot of time and money. And where to use them is up to you to decide. All the work required a weekend evening and 10 rubles (a bag of lasers from Aliexpress 10pcs x 10 rubles = 100 rubles). I had the rest of the components in stock.

Many people know about the possibilities of laser technologies and their benefits. They are used not only in industry, but also in cosmetology, medicine, everyday life, art and other industries. human life. However, not everyone knows how to make a laser at home. But it can be built from scrap materials. To do this, you will need a non-working DVD drive, a lighter or a flashlight.

Before starting at home, you need to collect all the necessary elements. First of all, you need to disassemble the DVD drive. To do this, unscrew all the screws that hold the top and bottom covers of the device. Next, the main cable is disconnected and the board is unscrewed. The protection of diodes and optics must be broken. The next step is to remove the diode, which is usually done with pliers. To prevent static electricity from damaging the diode, its legs must be tied with wire. You must remove the diode carefully so as not to break the legs.

Next, before making a laser at home, you need to make a driver for the laser, which is represented by a small circuit that regulates the power supply to the diode. The fact is that if the power is set incorrectly, the diode can quickly fail. You can use AA batteries or a mobile phone battery as a power source.

Before you make a laser at home, you need to take into account the fact that the burning effect is provided by optics. If it is not there, then the laser will simply shine. As optics, you can use a special lens from the same drive from which the diode was taken. To set the focus correctly, you need to use a laser pointer.

In order to build a regular pocket laser, you can use a regular lighter. However, before you make a laser from a lighter, you need to know the construction technology. It is best to purchase a high-quality incendiary element. It needs to be disassembled, but the parts should not be thrown away, as they will still be useful in the design. If there is gas left in the lighter, it must be released. Then the insides must be turned out using a drill with special attachments. Inside the lighter body there is a diode from the drive, several resistors, a switch and a battery. All elements of the lighter need to be installed in their places, after which the button that previously lit the flame will turn on the laser.

However, to construct the device, you can use not only a lighter, but also a flashlight. Before you make a laser from a flashlight, you need to take the laser block from the CD drive. In principle, the structure of a homemade laser in a flashlight is no different from the structure of a laser in a lighter. You just need to take into account the power supply, which almost never exceeds 3 V, and it is also advisable to build an additional voltage stabilizer. It will increase the life. It is very important to take into account the polarity of the diode and stabilizer.

All assembled filling must be placed in the body of the disassembled flashlight. Not only is it removed from the flashlight beforehand inner part, but also glass. After installing the laser unit, the glass is installed in place.

Today anyone can make a laser for cutting metal with their own hands. And this fact cannot but rejoice, because a cutter is a unique device with which, without much difficulty, you can qualitatively and accurately cut metal of almost any thickness.

Advantages of laser cutting

Demand this method processing of materials is determined by several factors.

Cutting quality

The first and one of the most significant indicators is high quality laser cut products. Such parts have a smooth, even cut and are characterized by the absence of any flaws on the treated surface.

Versatility of the method

The second important advantage of laser cutting is that with the help of this procedure it has become possible to process almost all types of products, regardless of the hardness of the alloy from which they are made, their thickness or shape. In addition, the laser method of cutting parts is not limited to cutting in a plane, that is, it is possible to cut three-dimensional objects.

Possibility of process automation

The third advantage is the ability to automate the process of cutting metal with a laser using computer equipment. This property allows you to save not only time, but also money on the manufacture of special casting molds necessary for the production of products. This improves the productivity of the installation.

Computer-controlled metal cutting produces more quality parts, which do not require additional turning and polishing.

Note that all of the above qualities are inherent, to one degree or another, in all metal laser cutters, both industrial and homemade. The only difference between them lies in the power of these devices. Thus, hand-made lasers for cutting metal have less power compared to professional laser machines. They are great for cutting plywood and thin sheets of metal, but are not able to cope with super hard and thick ones. metal products, as opposed to special equipment.

But despite this, homemade cutters are more popular among craftsmen. And all because industrial installations are quite expensive, and not everyone can afford to buy such a laser for their home. In addition, in household There is no need to use a heavy-duty metal cutter; a simple one made by yourself is enough.

What materials and devices are needed to make a laser for cutting metal?

It is possible to make a metal laser cutter yourself with the following tools and materials:

laser pointer;
the simplest flashlight with rechargeable batteries;
an old writing computer disk drive (CD/DVD-ROM), equipped with a matrix with a laser (can be inoperative);
soldering iron;
set of screwdrivers.

It is worth preparing a place to create the device in advance. Work area must be freed from foreign objects, ensure convenient location and good lighting.

Once everything you need is prepared, you can proceed directly to assembling the metal laser cutter.

Step-by-step instructions for making a laser for cutting metal

The first step in the process of creating a homemade cutter is to disassemble the drive of an old computer laser disk drive. To do this, you must carefully disassemble the device and remove the device itself without damaging its integrity.

Then you need to remove the red diode, which burns the disk while recording information to it. This diode, otherwise known as a laser emitter, is placed on a special carriage equipped with a large number of fasteners. To remove the emitter, you need to unsolder all the fasteners using a soldering iron. It is important to perform all actions with the utmost care, since any damage to the diode can cause it to fail.

The next stage of assembling a metal laser cutter involves installing the emitter in place of the LED that comes with the pointer. To do this, carefully disassemble the pointer into 2 parts without damaging the connectors and holders. Then take out the LED and put the laser in its place. If necessary, you can fix it using regular PVA glue.

Next comes the manufacture of a housing for a homemade laser cutter. You can assemble the housing for the laser using a flashlight and rechargeable batteries by aligning the lower part of an ordinary flashlight, in which the batteries are located, with the upper part of the pointer (before assembly, you must remove the glass installed in it from the tip of the pointer), where the emitter is located.

When making such a connection, it is important to correctly connect the diode to the battery charging, observing the polarity.

After completing all the steps, the cutter will be ready to use! It is important to remember that the device can cause harm to health if safety rules are violated! Be careful!

DIY laser cutter

What is the difference between finished products

The main reason why many people prefer a homemade laser cutter is the low cost of this device. It should be noted that a home laser for cutting metal performs simple tasks no worse than a factory laser.

This is explained by the same principle of operation of any metal laser cutter, which is as follows:

Working principle of laser cutting

During the cutting procedure, the laser acts on metal surface in such a way that an oxidizing agent is formed on it, which increases the energy absorption coefficient.
The powerful radiation causes the material to heat up.
At the point of contact of the laser beam with the metal, a very high temperature, leading to melting of the metal surface.

The difference in the operation of a factory cutter and a homemade laser cutter lies in their power, and, accordingly, in the depth of the laser cut into the metal surface. Thus, factory models are equipped with high-quality materials, which ensures sufficient depth. Homemade cutters can cut only 1-3 cm.

All photos from the article

Is it difficult to assemble a plywood laser cutting machine with your own hands? What problems can you expect? different stages implementation of the project? What equipment will you have to buy? In this article we will try to find answers to these questions.

Pros and cons of laser cutting

When implementing any large-scale project, the question of its feasibility always arises. We will try to help the reader answer it independently.

Benefits

In practice, a device for laser cutting of plywood is capable of working not only with plywood. The list of processed materials includes leather, fabrics, plexiglass, plastics, in short, all materials that have low thermal conductivity and relatively low temperature combustion;
Thanks to CNC, the machine allows you to cut with the highest precision, creating detailed contours;
Its capabilities are not limited to sharp shooting. Laser machines for cutting plywood are quite capable of performing the functions of an engraver. By varying the speed of the carriage and the power of the beam, they can create complex images with tonal transitions;
Thanks to beam focusing, the cut width can be kept to a minimum- from 1/100 mm, which again has a positive effect on the accuracy of manufacturing parts or the detail of the image applied to the workpiece.

Problems

Of course, you can’t do without them either:

The price of the purchased equipment will not be cheap. The most popular solution for inexpensive homemade engravers - a laser diode removed from a DVD burner - is absolutely not suitable for cutting plywood due to low power. The minimum laser power for cutting plywood is 20 watts; with any significant thickness of the material, it is better to increase it to 40 - 80;

Information: a carbon dioxide laser tube of this power, when ordered directly from Chinese manufacturers, will cost the customer 15 - 20 thousand rubles at the current exchange rate. The cost of a complex and expensive focusing system, DSP controller, stepper motor driver and carriages will be added to the laser costs.

The life cycle of the tube is from 3 to 8 thousand hours, after which it requires replacement;
The laser requires liquid cooling. IN industrial conditions For this purpose, a cooling unit is used, operating on the principle heat pump– chiller. The minimum cost of such a unit is 35 - 45 thousand rubles;

However: for a short duration of work, you can get by with a tank with a capacity of 80 - 100 liters and a water pump that will pump its contents through the tube jacket.

CNC implies the presence of not only special software , but also sketches of the outline of the manufactured product. Blueprints for laser cutting plywood are not that easy to find; their independent construction will take a very long time;
Finally, the material is cut by rapidly heating and evaporating it. In this case, the edges of the cut inevitably become charred, and the room is filled with smoke. If so, we will have to design closed body with a transparent lid and an intensive forced ventilation system.

Design

So, how does a homemade laser for cutting plywood work?

The base of the frame is an aluminum corrugated pipe measuring 40x60, fastened with a furniture corner and metal screws. The body is assembled from inexpensive laminated chipboard - it does not experience significant loads in the process of work.

Please note: a 12-volt power supply is installed around the perimeter of the case. led strip. The backlight will allow you to visually control the cutting process.

Guides are fixed directly to the frame pipes, ensuring the movement of the carriages along the transverse axis.

A longitudinal pipe with another guide is screwed to the carriages - this time under the carriage, which directly ensures the movement of the head.

And here is the laser head itself for cutting plywood. Foil is used to seal the connection between the tube and the fitting.

Stepper electric motors with a belt drive and gearbox are used to drive the carriages. They can be removed from a faulty scanner or inkjet printer with hopelessly dried nozzles.

The use of two drives on carriages, ensuring movement of the head along the transverse axis, would create a problem with their precise synchronization. Instead, a single stepper motor with a gearbox and a shaft the length of the entire stroke of the head are used, guaranteeing synchronous movement of both carriages.

The photo shows the cover of the machine.

The massive lid is also made of chipboard; she goes up on furniture elevators. There remains a small gap between the lid and the body to allow air to flow in; smoke exhaust is organized from below.

A separate compartment houses the power supply, stepper motor driver and DSP controller, which provides control of the machine.

The laser tube is installed using plastic fasteners that allow its position to be changed. A water cooling tube is visible next to it. Water is pumped through it by a low-power pump for a home fountain.

Cooling is organized using a regular plastic 100-liter water bottle.

Useful little things

Finally - a few small tips to the owner of a homemade engraver:

Use for cutting. The instructions are due to the fact that resinous coniferous wood quickly stains the bottom and walls of the working compartment with resin deposited on them;
Monitor the condition of the mirror in the work compartment. Soot deposited on it can lead to a drop in the power of the focused beam and overheating of the mirror itself;
Keep your hands and eyes away from the line between the handset and the mirrors. Even without focusing, a narrow beam of 20 watts or more can cause severe burns and complete loss of vision.

This trace was left by a 10-watt beam. The exposure time is 0.5 seconds.

Conclusion

As you can see, equipment for laser cutting of plywood can be made independently; however, the costs and time involved will be quite significant.

As always, the reader will be offered additional thematic materials by the video in this article. We will be glad to see your comments and suggestions in the comments. Good luck!

The possibility of making something useful out of unused or worn-out equipment attracts many home craftsmen. One such useful device is a laser cutter. Having such a device at their disposal (some even make it from ordinary laser pointer), can be performed decorative design products from various materials.

What materials and mechanisms will be required

To make a simple laser cutter with your own hands, you will need the following materials and technical devices:

laser pointer;
a regular flashlight equipped with rechargeable batteries;
an old burner drive (CD/DVD-RW) equipped with a laser drive (it is not at all necessary that such a drive be in working condition);
soldering iron;
set of locksmith tools.

Thus, you can make a simple laser cutting device using materials that are easy to find in your home workshop or garage.

The process of making a simple laser cutter

The main working element of a homemade cutter of the proposed design is the laser element of a computer disk drive. You should choose a writing drive model because the laser in such devices has a higher power, which allows you to burn tracks on the surface of the disk installed in them. The design of the read-type disk drive also contains a laser emitter, but its power, used only to illuminate the disk, is low.

The laser emitter, which is equipped with a recordable disk drive, is placed on a special carriage that can move in two directions. To remove the emitter from the carriage, it is necessary to free it from a large number of fasteners and detachable devices. They should be removed very carefully so as not to damage the laser element. In addition to the usual tools, to remove the red laser diode (and this is what you need to equip a homemade laser cutter), you will need a soldering iron to carefully release the diode from the existing solder joints. Removing the emitter from seat, care should be taken not to expose it to strong mechanical impact, which may cause its failure.

The emitter, removed from the writing computer drive, must be installed instead of the LED that was originally equipped with the laser pointer. To perform this procedure, the laser pointer must be disassembled, dividing its body into two parts. In the top of them there is an LED, which should be removed and replaced with a laser emitter from a computer disk drive. When fixing such an emitter in the pointer body, you can use glue (it is only important to ensure that the emitter eye is located strictly in the center of the hole intended for the beam to exit).

The voltage generated by the power supplies in a laser pointer is not enough to ensure the efficiency of using a laser cutter, so it is not advisable to use them to equip such a device. For the simplest laser cutter, rechargeable batteries used in a regular electric flashlight are suitable. Thus, by combining the lower part of the flashlight, which houses its batteries, with the upper part of the laser pointer, where the emitter from the writing computer drive is already located, you can get a fully functional laser cutter. When performing such a combination, it is very important to maintain the polarity of the batteries that will supply electricity to the emitter.

Before assembling a homemade hand-held laser cutter of the proposed design, it is necessary to remove the glass installed in it from the tip of the pointer, which will impede the passage of the laser beam. In addition, you need to once again check the correct connection of the emitter with the batteries, as well as how accurately its eye is located in relation to the output hole of the pointer tip. Once all the structural elements are securely connected to each other, you can start using the cutter.

Of course, with such a low-power laser it will not be possible to cut a metal sheet, and it will not be suitable for woodworking, but it is suitable for solving simple problems associated with cutting cardboard or thin polymer sheets.

Using the algorithm described above, it is possible to produce a more powerful laser cutter, slightly improving the proposed design. In particular, such a device must be additionally equipped with such elements as:

capacitors whose capacitance is 100 pF and 100 mF;
resistors with parameters 2–5 Ohms;
collimator - a device that is used to collect light rays passing through it into a narrow beam;
LED flashlight with steel body.

Capacitors and resistors in the design of such a laser cutter are necessary in order to create a driver through which electrical power will flow from the batteries to the laser emitter. If you do not use a driver and apply current directly to the emitter, the latter may immediately fail. Despite the higher power, such a laser machine will not work for cutting plywood, thick plastic, and especially metal.

How to make a more powerful device

Home craftsmen are often interested in more powerful laser machines that they can make with their own hands. It is quite possible to make a laser for cutting plywood with your own hands and even a laser cutter for metal, but for this you need to acquire the appropriate components. In this case, it is better to immediately make your own laser machine, which will have decent functionality and work in automatic mode, controlled by an external computer.

Depending on whether you are interested in DIY or you need a device for working on wood and other materials, you should correctly select the main element of such equipment - a laser emitter, the power of which can be different. Naturally, laser cutting Do-it-yourself plywood is done with a device of lower power, and a laser for cutting metal must be equipped with an emitter whose power is at least 60 W.

To make a full-fledged laser machine, including for cutting metal with your own hands, you will need the following consumables and components:

a controller that will be responsible for communication between an external computer and the electronic components of the device itself, thereby ensuring control of its operation;
electronic board equipped with an information display;
laser (its power is selected depending on the materials for which the cutter being manufactured will be used);
stepper motors, which will be responsible for moving the device’s desktop in two directions (stepper motors from unused printers or DVD players can be used as such motors);
cooling device for the emitter;
DC-DC regulator, which will control the amount of voltage supplied to the electronic board of the emitter;
transistors and electronic boards for controlling stepper motors of the cutter;
limit switches;
pulleys for installing timing belts and the belts themselves;
a housing, the size of which allows all the elements of the assembled structure to be placed in it;
ball bearings of various diameters;
bolts, nuts, screws, ties and clamps;
wooden boards, from which the working frame of the cutter will be made;
metal rods with a diameter of 10 mm, which will be used as guide elements;
a computer and a USB cable with which it will connect to the cutter controller;
set of locksmith tools.

If you plan to use a laser machine for do-it-yourself metal work, then its design must be reinforced to withstand the weight of the metal sheet being processed.

The presence of a computer and a controller in the design of such a device allows it to be used not only as a laser cutter, but also as an engraving machine. Using this equipment, the operation of which is controlled by a special computer program, you can with high accuracy and apply complex patterns and inscriptions with detail on the surface of the processed product. The corresponding program can be found freely available on the Internet.

By design, the laser machine, which you can make yourself, is a shuttle-type device. Its moving and guiding elements are responsible for moving the working head along the X and Y axes. The Z axis is the depth to which the material being processed is cut. For moving the working head of a laser cutter of the presented design, as mentioned above, stepper motors are responsible, which are fixed on the stationary parts of the device frame and connected to the moving elements using toothed belts.

Movable carriage homemade cutting

Sliding support Head with laser and radiator Carriage assembly