Granite Laser Engraving
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Granite engraving is an art technique that has been around for many hundreds years, but with the appearance of the laser technology, granite laser engraving has become the latest application of many professional for many different purposes. Probably the most popular are memorials and gravestones.
Granite is one of the hardest surfaces, and so is perfect for an outdoor plaque, memorial or gravestone. And with laser technology, a photo of the deceased can be added to the gravestone or memorial simply and easily. Granite is usually black but can be found in a dark gray. Black is most often the color of choice, and many feel that the blacker the granite the better stone.
If your desire is engraving your own granite, it is important that you can control carefully your engraver or before buying one to make sure that the engraver you have will cut into granite. Many smaller table top machines do not have the power to etch in granite, so it’s important to check this important point carefully.
Nevertheless, there are many companies, both on the internet and in your neighborhood, who do have the ability to etch in granite. Because granite is heavy, check carefully into shipping costs before you buy—the cost of shipping alone may make it worth the effort to find a local shop who can create the laser engraving in granite that you wish. The newer machines can take a photograph or a piece of complicated art and etch it into the granite, to create a one of the kind, long lasting memorial, plaque or gravestone.
Laser Engraving Iphone
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As the equivalent of tattoos for your gadgets, laser engraving manages to provoke the same love it/hate it response – some view it as an awesome act of self-expression and personalisation, while others see it as a permanent marring of a tech toy and something guaranteed to kill resale values. Still, if you’re a true geek you’ll love the idea of a laser so feast your eyes on this Laser’s video demo of one of their team’s iPhones going under the demon lens.
Of course, they’re not doing this for proverbials and giggles; they’d like very much for you to splash out $10k on one of their engraving machines. Now, assuming you’re not planning to engrave every single solitary item you own (plus those belonging to other people) it’s likely cheaper to go somewhere that already has an engraving machine and get them to do it as a one-off, but who cares. I just like seeing an iPhone undergo laser surgery.
UltraShort Pulse Laser Technology
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AOL Chief Executive Barry Schuler’s latest start-up tries to turn a military-grade laser into a commercial product: a device more powerful than the fireworks you’re missing by reading this, that can be used for all manner of purposes. “Bits and blades are all going to be replaced by light,” Shuler told Wired magazine recently about the project, still in development. He said the laser will be used to “cut metal, heal burns and kill cancer tumors — all without damaging heat”
Sound like Hollywood? It’s not. It’s the defense industry. After leaving AOL, Shuler was introduced to the technology through a Department of Defense program that pairs successful entrepreneurs with internal projects that it believes have commercial promise. It had been working on the a short-pulse laser project with the University of Central Florida. Schuler formed Raydiance and bought the rights, and has since received $25 million from venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a $10 million research contract from the US Navy and more angel funding from former Senator Bill Bradley.
According to Raydiance’s website:
“UltraShort Pulse lasers have compelling capabilities that can deliver major benefits to hundreds of lucrative markets. The problem is that that technology is impractical. It’s too expensive. It requires highly trained Ph.D.’s to operate. And while scientists in research labs have shown how USP photonics can revolutionize important applications, today’s USP systems don’t have the throughput they need for most real world applications. Raydiance’s vision is to liberate USP technology from the university lab domain and put it into the hands of hundreds and then thousands of inventors and entrepreneurs. In short, Raydiance’s mission is to make USP technology accessible.
Raydiance’s vision is to see USP technology power a new generation of products and services that revolutionize medicine; transform materials processing and manufacturing; and change the business of defense forever.”
This laser is no Hollywood prop. The technology itself has been around for years. The Petaluma, Ca.-based company’s innovation is that it takes a room-sized laser machine, fits it into a desktop-sized device and provides better software controls. Here’s a little more about the science, from a recent BusinessWeek article:
Unlike conventional lasers found in DVD players, phone networks, and welding shops, USP lasers switch on and off at impossibly high rates–as quickly as once every femtosecond, or a billionth of a millionth of a second. Those concentrated blasts can obliterate any material by literally knocking electrons out of an atom’s neighborhood. That means the lasers can do their job a few atoms at a time if need be, without heating up surrounding material. Since the zapped material is ablated into oblivion, there’s nothing to heat up or melt.
According to the Santa Rosa Press-Gazette, the first commercial applications will be out later this year.
The SF Chronicle points to one company, called EpiRay, that’s licensing the technology to use for cosmetic purposes. Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ajit Shah, who has experience developing surgical systems for SRI International, is raising $500,000 in seed funding. A former Raydiance consultant, he hopes the new device will be able to do things like remove tattoos — vaporizing the dyes that form a tattoo without burning the skin, in contrast with today’s painful techniques. However, the article notes, that he won’t be able to start testing with FD oversight and approval.
Companies like EpiRay are part of Schuler’s plan. He wants Raydiance’s technology to be the source of a new set of commercial laser innovations.
This is quite a leap from Schuler’s job at AOL, where according to a “resume” from 2001, his “proudest accomplishment” was “confounding the technology elite of Silicon Valley, who thought AOL was doomed because it dumbed down the Internet.” What lessons from AOL, we wonder, will Schuler bring to commercializing this space-age technology? Basic scientific research always promises a lot, but is hard to turn into profitable companies. We’ll keep watching.