Re: robotic workcell design

Certainly you should be safe when using a laser in your system, but I
believe my cnc mill is ten times more dangerous than the small Synrad
10 watt CO2 laser. The cnc mill slings chips that can blind you,
possibly the BT40 tooling could come out of the taper at high speed,
you could slip and get your hand caught in a 1 inch diameter endmill,
etc. etc. The rf driven 10 watt CO2 laser is completely sealed and
runs off of 28VDC at about 7 amps. My 5hp spindle motor driver runs
on 230VAC at 20-30 amps. Which would you rather touch? :-)

I think the CO2 laser you used to work on was high voltage DC excited
from your description. Probably something around 10,000VDC at 60mA
for a 50-100 watt laser. That voltage and current will kill you
instantly without breaking a sweat.

There are other things to worry about with laser machining. For one
thing, some plastics give off some very nasty chemicals when they are
burned.