Is it safe to use a piece of galvanized steel plate 12x12 inches as a shield. Not to try and burn or cut but to use as a shield in the bottom of my K40.
I have cut a hole so that my rotary will fit inside my K40, well that leaves a hole that now when lasering other stuff like just wood etc on the normal bed I have the beam has been burning the table beneath this hole, so I am trying to think of an easy way to block the hole when not using the rotary.
I read somewhere that a CO2 lasers and galvanized metal don’t go well together due to gasses emitted.
Yea I already checked Lowes here locally and all they have is either galvanized or hot dipped galvanized.
I do have some old baking sheets I could probably cut up to the size I need. Was just going to go with an aluminum or stainless sheet but they are both kind of pricy at the moment on amazon for a simple 12x12 inch piece.
And although the beam is pretty defocused at that range it sure did leave some nasty burn marks on the table below the chassis where I cut out the hole.
Guess I will play it safe and just order aluminum or stainless from amazon.
Thanks for the feedback!
I ordered some thick foil tape that I am going to use on my motorized labjack I designed, I will probably cover it with that for now. K40 Laser Motorized Lab Jack - YouTube
I don’t see a problem using galvanized metal in the bottom of the laser bed. As mentioned before, the beam is going to be very defocused by the time it the plate. I have aluminized duct tape covering a hole in the bottom of my laser and it works just fine.
If you want aluminum, go to a local metal yard. It will be way less than what you pay online and cheaper than Home Depot or Lowes. I buy off-cuts for $3.50 per pound from a metal yard conveniently located not far off the freeway along my commute to and from work.
For example, a 12"x12" piece of 1/8" aluminum at a popular online metal seller would be $30.62 plus shipping. It would cost me about $6.20 at the metal yard. It is actually cheaper for me to make parts out of aluminum off-cuts than from plastics. When I was cutting new plates to modify my CNC router, I found a 4 foot by 12" piece of 1/4" aluminum plate “off-cut” and paid about $50 for it. For protecting the work top from a laser you could get a much thinner and therefore much cheaper piece.