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I saw this over at Hackaday. Magx1 has created a homebuilt CO2 laser using air exhaled into a balloon as the gas source. There is a great Flickr set and a video.
He explains a little bit about how it works in the video. To fill in some blanks…a flowing gas electrical discharge plasma laser works like this: Gas is pulled into a tube using a vacuum pump. The gas has be to pulled down to a very low pressure before the air will start. There is a bit of a balance done using a needle value to keep the pressure right on the sweet spot.
Most people buy premixed gas for flowing gas CO2 lasers. It is a mix of gases that “cooperate” to produce the best beam. I never suspected you could get a decent beam with such a rough gas mixture.
Very cool maxg1!
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