Ouch my eye!

So I headed over to Brandon’s workplace to get the laser today. I didn’t bring my camera, so I don’t have any new pictures, but will try to document as much as possible when I get into tearing the  thing apart.  The earlier pictures don’t do the disaster justice, it really is a rusted, burnt out hunk of junk. But the laser does look salvageable, so at least I might get something out of it (if it works).

I think I can salvage the chassis, but it’s going to take A LOT of work. The chassis will need to be totally disassembled & media-blasted to remove all the paint and rust [looks like it might have sat outside for a period of time]. For re-painting, I’m thinking of powder-coating it, but that could be expensive so we’ll see. I have a limited budget, so I’d rather put the money to the actual functionality rather than the aesthetics.  Either way, it needs paint… not sure what colour yet, but I might take a cue from the current line-up of ULS lasers, which break away from the standard grey-beige colour scheme of the unit as it is now.

What I can salvage of the internals remains to be seen, as much of it is hidden below what was the viewing window, which is now a hardened shell draped over the X-Y cutting table after melting in the fire. The electronics and laser look to be in good shape, with the exception of the front panel, which is burnt to a crisp. This job isn’t for everyone, and I can see why the lab members turned it down. But I’m up for the challenge. This is going to take practically every skill I have from electrical to mechanical to software to get this thing back up and running. Thankfully I work as an embedded systems engineer, so I have a good set of resources at work to help make this project happen.

Rust and charcoal aside, it was a good day… Brandon is a really cool guy, and I hope to be able to call him a friend. If nothing else pans out, meeting him made the trip worthwhile. I hope he gets a chance to drop by the lab sometime, or even becomes a member, as I think he’d fit in with the group very well. His workplace is very cool too, and I want to extend a big thanks to whomever was involved in letting him give away the scrapped laser system. Regardless of the state of the laser, I think I owe a few people a round of drinks.