The intention is to polimerize/depolimerize the etchresist and solder mask. In the industrie is know as LDI (Laser Direct Imaging). Before the blue-violet LASER diodes the industrie use Argon and Kripton LASERS. But being gas LASERs, the method of modulation was very complex and costly. Working with a 405nm LASER diode is far simpler.
Lucho
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Henry Liu <henryjliu@...> wrote:
>
> I think you need a 3W UV laser to ablate copper.
>
> I saw a UV laser at Fabtech with galvos in an enclosed case. No moving
> parts. It was sweet. They guy put a pen in and typed up my name and it
> engraved it in about 3 seconds. Super clean not like CO2 cuts. I can't
> remember if the machine was $30,000 or if that was just the diode without
> the galvos.
>
> http://www.lpkfusa.com/microline/pl_u.htm
> uses 3W UV laser does 1mil traces/1mil spacing
> Costs $220,000
>
>
> http://www.lpkfusa.com/microline/pl_s.htm
> uses 10W YAG laser
> costs $120,000
>
> If you can get the UV to fire safely, I sell you a XY overhead complete
> gantry for ~$1200 with motors and control card. This gantry is currently
> used on my 50W CO2 laser (which copper doesn't absorb).
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 8:38 AM, lmri2071 <lmri2071@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > I had this idea about seven years ago. But at that time the Laser Diodes
> > of 405nm were impossible to obtain (USD$4000). Since last year, I have
> > taken this idea again, because now one can buy those laser diodes around
> > USD$40 (85mW) in eBay. I saw in web (youtube) some germans guys
> > experimenting with this, but I have not see the results. Also I read
> > about a french engineer who made some experiments with UV LEDs coupled
> > with a fibre optic. I have a Polish paper which expose the use of this
> > idea to get 50um (2 mils) clear cut beatiful traces, but they use very
> > expensive optics ( telecentric lenses, glavos and others things which
> > are too costly for the DIYer ).
> >
> > Now I struggling with optics. When I get some control of the LASER beam
> > waist, I gonna put my laser module in a CNC engraver.
> >
> > There are anyone working on that in this group?
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>