Plasics and lasers

[Revmutt]

Is there any rules of thumb in terms of using plastics for rotating Lumia wheels, lens, filters or mirrors in terms of what is not likely to burn?

I'm familiar with what I can get away with 250W halogen bulbs and spinning plastic disks because that's what most of the kinetic lights use.

The laser I'm using is 40W total (100mW 638nm Red CW, 100mW 532nm Green CW, 300mW 450nm Blue CW) I am assuming this is relatively modest in terms of power.

I'd like to know whether this is enough to create burns in acrylics. Whether I can get away with using spinning wheels made of plastics and if so is there a distance between the laser and the plastic that I need to maintain.

Thanks,
Tommy

[Displaser]

500mW (if I assume that 40W is a typo), is likely too low to damage clear plastic. I'll need to see what the threshold is for a burn disk, but 2W of 532nm definitely works on smoke/black plexiglass.

Greg

[swamidog]

you will probably be fine at that power level. just watch your focus. make sure your lasers are focused at infinity instead of on the wheel.

Is there any rules of thumb in terms of using plastics for rotating Lumia wheels, lens, filters or mirrors in terms of what is not likely to burn?

I'm familiar with what I can get away with 250W halogen bulbs and spinning plastic disks because that's what most of the kinetic lights use.

The laser I'm using is 40W total (100mW 638nm Red CW, 100mW 532nm Green CW, 300mW 450nm Blue CW) I am assuming this is relatively modest in terms of power.

I'd like to know whether this is enough to create burns in acrylics. Whether I can get away with using spinning wheels made of plastics and if so is there a distance between the laser and the plastic that I need to maintain.

Thanks,
Tommy

[Revmutt]

Thanks Greg,
The actual laser stats are here: http://www.laserking.com.hk/products_show.asp?proid=357
Being a novice I may be understanding that output wattage in the wrong context, or it's a typo.
It would be great if I could use some of the tricks I've developed for other lighting types into use with lasers.
Maybe others will chime in a add some hopefully positive reinforcement for using plastic.
Tommy

[Revmutt]

you will probably be fine at that power level. just watch your focus. make sure your lasers are focused at infinity instead of on the wheel.

Thanks Swamidog,
Just to be clear, if I am controlling the laser via software for example I should widen the beam and aim slightly off angle instead of smack dab center. -I get the concept of bringing the focal point back but with a camera it's a little bit different since you are dealing with an adjustable lens.

[swamidog]

it's a lot simpler with laser than other lighting equipment. just add the output power of all the lasers:

"Laser Power: 100mW 638nm Red CW
100mW 532nm Green CW
300mW 450nm Blue CW"

that system is a 500mW (milliwatt) projector.

Thanks Greg,
The actual laser stats are here: http://www.laserking.com.hk/products_show.asp?proid=357
Being a novice I may be understanding that output wattage in the wrong context, or it's a typo.
It would be great if I could use some of the tricks I've developed for other lighting types into use with lasers.
Maybe others will chime in a add some hopefully positive reinforcement for using plastic.
Tommy

[Revmutt]

Man that is simple and stupidly so. Even someone like me with no schooling can see that logic.
Now if everything else eases in as I learn I'll be able to stop asking dumb questions and start doing actually stuff.

[swamidog]

it can get complicated.. but you won't bang into those problems making lumia.

i posted a thread a while back: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...ami+make+lumia

also clickamouse has some excellent lumia resources: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...lumia+resource

Man that is simple and stupidly so. Even someone like me with no schooling can see that logic.
Now if everything else eases in as I learn I'll be able to stop asking dumb questions and start doing actually stuff.

[Revmutt]

Thanks, I've read a fair amount on lumia because it connects with all the Kinetic lighting I use and at some point I even bought one of those Chauvet units just to toss into the mix.

The learning curve stuff is dumb things like figuring out which scanners any idiot can wire up their modular to and get nice with the quadrature oscillators. That's the stuff that I only halfway get at the moment. I get how it works just not the literal choosing these open loop scanners and soldering this into that.

[Bradfo69]

just watch your focus. make sure your lasers are focused at infinity instead of on the wheel.

Can we revist this for a second? You comment as well as it's answer.

Huh??? 'esplain please.