[HanspeterH]

I am wondering, whether there are users in this forum, who have tried out or have experience with the laser-origami technique. This technique uses the laserbeam in defocussed mode to heat up acryl and let it then bend by gravity only. If you do not know what that is see this movie showing the technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arjRtCjI9AQ

I have made some tries, but its difficult to finf the right laserpower/distance settings to not make the acryl heatup too much and not remove too much material by this process. Anybody here who tried taht already and is willing to share some knowledge?

Hanspeter

[pippin88]

That is a very clever idea

[CNC-Design]

I would also be very interested if anyone has had any experience with this.

[corseceng]

Well I've tried for weeks to get it to work and not had any luck. I have a 40 watt Hurricane Laser Agnes. I suspect that my machine can never do it. Their machine is running at about 1000mm/s Mine tops out at 400mm/s. As far as we can tell they are running at maybe 20-50 watts. They list the % of power settings but never tell us what the machine is rated at.

I cannot get it to bend without burning the material. I suspect that I cannot transfer enough heat to the part over a period of time with a low enough setting to prevent burning. It's cooling off before the head returns to apply more heat. They do 40 passes. We also came up with 50mm as the laser table offset.

My only other option with my machine is to try and find a hole setting that will work. I can adjust the radiation time, interval between holes, and the power but I have not found a setting that works yet.

Jonathan Bowen
CorSec Engineering

[grawley]

I put this article up a few years ago, http://www.worldlasers.com/articles/...ding_parts.pdf. For your specific needs, you could probably search the internet using the keywords found in it.

[tejaswood]

I could be WAY off in my thinking here, but it would seem to me that if you were to move the piece out of focus you would get a wider beam displacement which would heat a broader area on each pass. Considering a 40 watt laser has more than enough power to cut right through the material, I would think that you would still generate quite a bit of heat even out of focus.

[corseceng]

The problem is that the I'm generating too much heat in one area. I'm burning the material instead of evenly heating a specific area to the point of bending. The faster laser head can generate more passes in a smaller time so the beam doesn't have to be as powerful to apply the same amount of heat. It should be just maring the surface instead I get a melted surface that slowly eats into the material.

@grawley I'll have to give it a read. Thanks!