Homebrew PCBs

At 03:49 AM 10/06/03, you wrote:
>Beam divergance would kill you.  THe beam will grow in size as it
>travels.  If it grows, the engery is displaced over a bigger area,
>and will need more time to 'cut'  Our lasers do have 'adaptive
>optics' a mirror that bends to control the beam's waist (and
>autofucus)  But to hold a beam's size for a few feet, itsn't
>practicle.
>A waterjet has a better chance, but that still a prob.
>How about a hot knife/wire?

We do use a hot wire cutter. It has two problems one is
a practical cutting length of about 4 feet and for tapered or
twisted shapes the result depends on the two operators.

There are the odd commercial cnc machine out there
(real big $$) but it would be nice to have a cnc laser. I
didn't know you would have problems with beam dispersion
  over such a short run hadn't heard that before.

I was thinking it might not be possible because of the
depth of the cut and the way the material vaporizes. Thats
really all the hot wire does is vaporize the material area
immediately around the wire.

Oh well learn something everyday.

Thanks

Dave