[xavieralexandre]

The article rightly points out the industrial impact of more powerful and compact lasers but I cannot wait for those PCSELs to reach the small workshop market. Having a cheap laser able to cut metal at home / small shops would be so useful (And sneakily dangerous as lasers are).

[nabilhat]

A more powerful laser is only half of the equation for cutting metal effectively.

The laser only melts the metal, it doesn't move it out of the cut, and some metals can react in plain air to sputter back at the emitter optics. Gas is forced under pressure at the cut to clear it. With some metals and/or thinner (speaking from a commercial perspective) stock, you can get away with plain air at high volumes of normal air compressor pressures with good results if it's very clean and dry. Others require specifically reactive or nonreactive gases or blends of gases. That's true for most hot cutting processes though. Plasma usually consumes plain air to blow out the cut, oxy-fuel uses excess oxygen to reactively blow out the cut. Lasers with their extremely narrow kerf are more finicky, which can mean a surprisingly high consumables cost.

More powerful lasers also require the optical hardware to operate in a light vacuum. Plasma generated by dust and air itself will ablate expensive parts. Home shops shouldn't need that much power though. If you're cutting thick or difficult metals regularly, that's not a hobby any more.

Then there's the byproducts. Organics get blasted into all kinds of random organic-ish things that aren't great to ingest or emit at ground level near neighbors (PSA, this is true for current hobby lasers). Cutting metals can get really exciting if you don't clean often and thoroughly enough to prevent a critical mass of finely powdered byproducts. An iron or aluminum fire will wreck your laser. An iron and aluminum fire will wreck your laser, and whatever it's sitting on, and the concrete below that.

[phkahler]

>> (And sneakily dangerous as lasers are)

These seem safer. With a wide emission area and focusing lens, a reflected beam will weaken with distance.

[TaylorAlexander]

Indeed, I feel less worried about my 50w solid state laser cutting head from China than I would a 5w laser pointer, as the 50w laser head has a 5mm focal distance and the head has a 50mm square housing, so it mostly obscures what it is lasing and it defocuses quickly.

[thesz]

> Having a cheap laser able to cut metal at home / small shops would be so useful (And sneakily dangerous as lasers are).

So, please do not come around these lasers with remaining eye unprotected.

I think one should work with these things only using some cameras and never directly.

[Blackthorn]

Given how quickly dangerous these compact lasers can be, I think I'd rather stick with the handheld plasma cutter.

[rozap]

The quality of the cuts out of a plasma cutter are not great. I always have to spend some time cleaning them up after the fact. I'd hope laser cut parts are much better.

[angra_mainyu]

I shudder at the thought of these kinda of lasers reaching the hands of those involved in street crime.

[HeatrayEnjoyer]

You can already blind people with cheap laser pointers. This isn't a new danger.

[pureheartlover]

Honestly I'm kinda surprised there aren't handheld laser engraving devices made for quick and permanent graffiti.

[bloggie]

These do exist, here's one I saw recently: https://www.laserpwr.net/hand-held-laser/hand-held-laser-2.h...

[abakker]

There are abundant portable galvo head lasers out there. A lot of them targeting the hobby market, but also more powerful ones (that are less cheap) meant for marking or engraving parts in situ.

Everlast now has a laser welder, too.

I think it’s only a matter of time before we get cheaper cutter in the 1kw range.

[TeMPOraL]

On that note, did anyone ever make a handheld inkjet or spray nozzle, so you could print graffiti on walls or things on the go? I imagine most of the tech in it would be the same as in the kind of laser device you're asking about.

[codesnik]

or quick and permanent scar

[coder543]

Can you expand on why you think this would be so great for home workshops? How do you envision using the laser? Handheld, mounted, or on a CNC?

[mft_]

CNC would be an obvious implementation.

At the moment, there are expensive-but-affordable home CNC laser cutters, typically for a small number of thousand EUR/USD. The more powerful ones can do a very neat job cutting (up to a few mm of) plywood. There are also CNC plasma cutters, which do a good but slightly rough job of cutting sheet metal, and are relatuvely large and complex beasts. I guess a highly-powerful laser, of the type envisioned, would offer the best of all worlds: relatively neat and quick cutting of all materials on the same compact machine.

They might also replace handheld plasma cutters (and welders?) too.

[detritus]

Not Poster, but commercially-available solid state lasers top out at a few tens of watts and due to limited wavelengths have restricted usage on certain materials (eg. even different colours of the same type of plastic may or may not cut, well or at all). I know I've a machine in mind that would be great to make if the available diode lasers were able to cut a wider range of materials, never mind metals.

If it can cut metal, it'd probably not suffer much in the way of limitations on other materials... .

[hallway_monitor]

I found a 5W CNC laser on sale for a little over $100. It's really fun and useful to cut things out of 2mm wood. Like the sibling says, having the metal cutting version of this at home would be amazing. I have access to one at a shop in the local university that can cut 4-5mm metal - thick enough for a lot of applications.

[sylware]

Aren't such laser cutters in enclosing opaq casing with a operation monitoring camera to avoid accidents?

[TaylorAlexander]

Plenty are available for sale without the casing, such as this one:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804553731471.html

I have worked with several nicer fully enclosed models that do not have any monitoring camera. I have a similar model to this one with no such camera, and I suspect this one does not have one either:

https://omtechlaser.com/products/60w-co2-laser-engraver-with...

That said if a kilowatt metal cutting laser was for sale, I would suspect it would have a full enclosure at least.

[dtgriscom]

They should be so enclosed, but I doubt they're always so enclosed.

[MarcScott]

These lasers mean that the watches that Q gave to James Bond will finally become a reality.

LLMs and self-driving cars mean that KITT from Knight Rider will finally become a reality.

All I need is for Webb to discover a planet a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, and my childhood fictions will have been realised.

[rohansingh]

Wouldn't you still need to provide an amount of power to the laser that's not currently feasible for a watch?