# Laser cleaning device **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591 "2015-01-12T02:42:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/1 "2015-01-12T02:42:42Z")
Power-washing surfaces with white-hot laser light. [http://tune.pk/video/2652706/laser-cleaning-removes-rubber-residue-wmv](http://tune.pk/video/2652706/laser-cleaning-removes-rubber-residue-wmv) I want one! ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/2 "2015-01-12T03:23:56Z")
Your link gets redirected to a porn site… ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/3 "2015-01-12T03:26:33Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Your link gets redirected to a porn site… Works fine for me. I got sent to the right site. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/4 "2015-01-12T03:32:46Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Works fine for me. I got sent to the right site. That’s odd. It’s working for me now, too. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/5 "2015-01-12T05:41:20Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > That’s odd. It’s working for me now, too. Glad that’s sorted out. Who wants a dirty laser? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/6 "2015-01-12T13:44:08Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Glad that’s sorted out. Who wants a dirty laser? My first thought when I read the title. I’ve disassembled and cleaned more lasers than I want to think about. One place decided to try to make its gas laser more efficient by hooking up a vacuum pump to suck out the exhausted gas. Until it stopped working one day. So we took it apart and found the inside filled with vacuum pump oil. _That_ was fun to clean up. As for the OP, I can’t watch the video at work, but I’ve heard of people using lasers to spot-clean sculptures and the like. And in my work on laser propulsion we found that the first shot blew all the dirt off the surface of the reaction mass (which, embarrassingly, gave a bigger impulse than we later got by blowing off pieces of reaction mass), so I’m not surprised at people using lasers to clean surfaces – as long as you’re aware that you might be removing some of said surface at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/7 "2015-01-12T14:49:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > My first thought when I read the title. I’ve disassembled and cleaned more lasers than I want to think about. > One place decided to try to make its gas laser more efficient by hooking up a vacuum pump to suck out the exhausted gas. Until it stopped working one day. So we took it apart and found the inside filled with vacuum pump oil. > > _That_ was fun to clean up. > > As for the OP, I can’t watch the video at work, but I’ve heard of people using lasers to spot-clean sculptures and the like. And in my work on laser propulsion we found that the first shot blew all the dirt off the surface of the reaction mass (which, embarrassingly, gave a bigger impulse than we later got by blowing off pieces of reaction mass), so I’m not surprised at people using lasers to clean surfaces – as long as you’re aware that you might be removing some of said surface at the same time. I haven’t used gas lasers except the sealed kind, but I assume they were just using a scroll pump or something similar. Surely they were not using a diffusion pump to back an optical cavity? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/8 "2015-01-12T14:59:10Z")
> [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](#): > > I haven’t used gas lasers except the sealed kind, but I assume they were just using a scroll pump or something similar. Surely they were not using a diffusion pump to back an optical cavity? Not even a diffusion pump – it was a pretty standard off-the-shelf roughing pump. They put all kinds of filters in the line that was supposed to block the pump oil from getting into the cavity, but it clearly didn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/9 "2015-01-12T16:05:04Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Your link gets redirected to a porn site… There’s a recent ATMB thread about this. Check that thread & report your incident to Ed. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/10 "2015-01-12T16:42:40Z")
The link was reported. It works fine for me too. That is about the end of my technical expertise. As others have suggested ATMB is where you go for board performance issues. Although I’m sure your first step should probably be to make sure your computer isn’t infected. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/11 "2015-01-12T16:48:26Z")
**Cal** , did you try just using a big lump of dirt for reaction mass? ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/12 "2015-01-12T18:07:13Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Glad that’s sorted out. Who wants a dirty laser? …but it says it removes rubber residue… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/13 "2015-01-12T18:24:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Cal** , did you try just using a big lump of dirt for reaction mass? “dirt” is badly defined. You can have anything in dirt. We were ultimately going to use ice – nice, non-polluting, well-characterized. But for our initial work we used acetal plastics like Delrin and Celcon. Huge absorption at CO2 laser wavelengths, easy to get and cheap, and you didn’t have to keep it frozen like ice. Nevertheless, the surface got stuff on it, and that first shot blew the “dirt” off. After that it wasn’t the same. We never tried analyzing the dirt. (although, in adding alkali metal ion dopants to the mix to facilitate ionization, we were curiously drawn to one substance from its name alone – dilithium tartrate. As far as I know, we’re the only people who ever actually tried using dilithium crystals for space propulsion. Still didn’t work as well as the dirt. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/14 "2015-01-12T20:35:33Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > …but it says it removes rubber residue… A wash cloth has always proved sufficient whenever I used that form of contraception. Who, besides Superman, generates that kind of friction? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/15 "2015-01-13T04:09:36Z")
[https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=laser+cleaning&vid=a5ff64a2f9cb01a9699287b920d886f3&l=1%3A33&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.608006016199362675%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1qQdgNZVaa0&tit=Laser+Cleaning+of+Glass+Molds&c=20&sigr=11bk80cbk&sigt=10t2gkqus&ct=p&age=0&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&b=121&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&tt=b](https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=laser+cleaning&vid=a5ff64a2f9cb01a9699287b920d886f3&l=1%3A33&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.608006016199362675%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1qQdgNZVaa0&tit=Laser+Cleaning+of+Glass+Molds&c=20&sigr=11bk80cbk&sigt=10t2gkqus&ct=p&age=0&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&b=121&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&tt=b) Some of these laser washer devises have a vaccuum hose to suck up the vaporized smoke ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laser-cleaning-device/709591/16 "2015-01-13T17:43:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > \ – dilithium tartrate. As far as I know, we’re the only people who ever actually tried using dilithium crystals for space propulsion. > > Still didn’t work as well as the dirt. So far! But 2057 isn’t that far away! 🙂