I’ve been playing with the $100 2.8 watt laser as conceived by Leo69 (Hereafter Leo’s Laser) and have been struggling to get clean cuts and to burn through material. I’d been reading about how the big cats in the field use a fine jet of air to clear smoke, char and ash from the cut and cool the surrounding areas to prevent excessive burning.
Found some basketball inflating needles, some clear poly hose that tightly fit the threads of the needle (3/16" ID, I think.) So, I cut of the end of the needle where it has a spare hole, and crushed it flat to limit the air flow and speed up the air that would be coming through. This flattening makes a high speed ‘blade’ of air come from the needle. If you have 3d printer nozzles or welding tips, these might work for you.
Applied teflon tape, screwed it into the poly hose, and put on a tiny hose clamp, then put on my goggles and removed my lasers shield. I wound a large amount of copper on the poly to help me aim the flexible hose. Zip-tied this to the laser assembly and Z tower, turned the laser on low, and made sure I directed the air ahead of the spot, and left a good 8 mm for cutting moves to bring the needle closer to the work. 10 PSI out of my pancake compressor is working great, to the point that I think I may need to invest in a cheap harbor freight airbrush compressor that would likely do this job well with much less noise.
That’s enough - proof is in the pics. Quality of burns and cuts is way, way up. Little to no smoke blocks the beam path. I highly recommend giving it a try.
–Matt
