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Using Microwaves to Drill Through Glass
Linux_ho writes "UPI is reporting that Israeli researchers have developed a drill that can melt a small hole in glass, ceramics, or concrete with no dust or noise. Nature.com reports that it doesn't work very well with good heat conductors or materials with very high melting points, but the researchers envision a wide variety of manufacturing applications, and possibly some medical uses as well."
Can it be suction-cupped onto a piece of glass to cut a perfect circle out?
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Wow. Imagine the implications in major industry. It would be the ultimate glass cutter.
I suppose it also melts through bunkers and armoured vehicles?
I've always wanted holes in my windows.
What kind of time are we talking about for the average hotpocket? I'm just thinking about the immediate benefits here.
to the F-ray.
So, the article was a bit misleading as the microwaves are not enough to go through.
The article mentions that it can only drill to a depth equal to a quarter of its wavelength. Why is this?
.75, 1.25, 1.75 etc.
Surely it could also drill at depths of
I am a Karma Library.
I doubt that steel conducts the heat away too fast. I'd wager that the steel conducts the RF radiation itself. Just like this device has an antenna, steel would be an antenna too. Not exactly impedance matched, but certainly enough to prevent the steel from being heated except across the entire piece.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
...Burglars and Bankrobbers Corp. raised it forcasts for the financial year 2003 after a R&D breaktrough.
I was doing the same thing over 10 years ago for my Master's thesis with a pulsed CO2 laser with ~500W time averaged output. What is the advantage of using a microwave beam over a CO2 laser?
What a great way to make holes in complicated glass pieces. I see a brave new future for the science of "pipe" making.
Stoners of the world unite ! Yay for those ingenious asians
Is a laser really that much more expensive than one of these? I mean, they've been around for 30+ years now, havn't they? I bet this doesn't turn out to be so much more cost-effective in the short run, at least.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
If you want to know how to build something similar yourself, Kent Fukuzura has some easy to follow instructions.
I guess jewlery stores will now use transparent aluminium instead.
Don't play with microwaves.
I've heard stories of people removing the magnetron and transformer arrangement from old microwaves, and firing it up. The reason it's a stupid idea is that it cooks you from the inside out. You don't feel it - no-one has heat sensing nerves on the inside of their bodies. By the time you realize something's wrong too much damage has been done.
It also leads to blindness. Don't fsck with microwaves unless you know what you're doing.
That device is very similar to my 'Death Ray TM'
This sounds like a nice invention for burglars. Now they no longer have to make noise when trying to break the window.
Next week on /.: invention of a burglar alarm that can detect microwaves.
This probably would have solved the cracking problem in Apples now defunct cube...
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
Common mis-understanding about microwaves. Cooking "from the inside out" is misleading. They only penetrate 3-4 cms (Might want to check exact). This is why cooking large items in a microwave is problematic.
You risk burning the outside of the food while the inside is still under cooked. For things like roasts, etc it is still better to use the slow and steady approach as the temperature has more of a chance to distribute evenly throughout the food, ensuring an even consistency. But I digress.
I thought he was
Your warning is a good one, but generally you do feel "warm" if you step in front of an active feed horn, before any damage is done.
You are very correct about the blindness though, looking directly into a hot horn can blind you before you knew what happened. Your eyes resonate right around the microwave range and absorbe them readily.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
...top secret weapons labratories?
Physicist #1: Oh man, this Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray bottle would make a killer bong!
Physicist #2: Ah, they shatter on the drill press, I tried it last week.
Physicist #3: (eyes red and bleary)Hey, what's wrong with the microwave? I wanna make this popcorn.
Physicist #1 & #2 (in harmony):Microwave?
Pizza pops.
...the price of tinfoil hats has doubled overnight in response to the news. A foil hat manufacturer, when asked, was quoted as saying "Well, we had to double the price. People gotta protect themselves from those orbiting mind-control lasers, alien mind probes, and now they gotta worry about Israeli scientists drilling holes in their heads!"
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
I'm assuming the microwaves don't work any more after they use them to drill the whole?
Think "Return of the Pink Panther in the 21st Century..."
What else is a silent, dustless, precision glass cutter good for?
Vortran out
P.S. - This is a joke. Please do not feel compelled to point out that the thing probably fills up a whole lab and has all the portability of a pile of bricks.
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
...until you can mount one of these on a shark's head... that would be frickin' cool!
And then you could sell it here...
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
what are you doing here then hmmmm?
I thought microwave ovens and the like work because the microwaves are the same frequency range as the rotational bands in water (of which we're what, 70%?). Thus, they make the water's spin which makes them hot - boiling the humour in the eyeball doesn't strike me as a fun thing to have done...
Alumina is Al203, a very stable oxide of aluminum. Its properties are entirely different from aluminum and making a ceramic clear isn't that novel.
I could be wrong here, but wouldn't an ultraviolet laser be far more effective? Glass is not transparent to the UV spectrum so shouldn't it be able to "drill" right through it?
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Weren't they doing this back in the 80's on a much bigger scale as a possible "star wars" weapon?
a conducting film or fine wire mesh in the wires should sort it
plus you are goign to probably need a big battery to get through my double glazing
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
mmmmm Popcorn
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Hmm. Sounds like it could be used as a weapon...
Silent killer....
Nevrar
but like the laser it's other properties make the difference
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Didn't someone recently make a homemade forge out of a common microwave? Seems these babies have got some uses it took us a decade (or two) to figure out! has it been a decade? bah!
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
Reminds me of this urban legend.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
It's just as well you don't design tanks. With a pinhole through the armor you could deliver anything from blast to nerve gas.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
What else is a silent, dustless, precision glass cutter good for?
An easily escaped, slow-starting, elaborate death-machine for the next Bond film?
"Vell, vell, Meester Bont! Vonce dis meecrovawe emitter has reached your krotch, it vill begin to heatink it unt den ve vill be pushink a rod into it. Dis process vill be takink about tventy minutes to begin. Ve vill be leavink you to your fate now."
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Since no man is truly complete without a portable power drill, I eagerly await a consumer version of this drill. ;)
i hope my dentist doesn't hear about this.
I thought microwave ovens and the like work because the microwaves are the same frequency range as the rotational bands in water
Well, sorta, but there is nothing magical about 2.4Ghz. It's not the "frequency that water resonates at", as I've even seen printed in semi-credible places.
google cache of message
This message on the wireless list sums it up pretty well, although it doesn't exist anymore, google cache has it.
The bottom line is that lower frequencies penetrate better in general, 2.4Ghz is just a pretty good compromise between penetration and reflection/absorbtion.
Of course things are different when you aren't inside a metal box like a microwave oven. In the oven, all reflected energy is going to eventually absorb into the object in the oven, or reflect back into the magnetotron. In free space, reflected waves are just going to fly off into space.
In free space, objects that are about the right size to resonate at a frequency don't reflect much of the energy, they absorb most of the energy, but most of it stays near the surface, this is called the skin effect. High voltages are induced on the surface of the object that is resonating, causing resistive heating. This skin effect is also what is responsible for sparks when you have small metal objects in the microwave. Larger objects like spoons and forks are actually less likely to arc than things like metal twist-ties, the twist-ties are closer to resonant, and also have tiny ends which concentrate the voltage. (blunt objects are less likely to arc, arcing happens when the volts/surface area reach a critical value)
The FCC has done lots of research on exposure to EM fields, and has come up with SAR (specific absorption rate) in humans, for many frequencies. It mostly boils down to this, your entire body most readily absorbs VHF energy around 400 Mhz, your head gets it worst around 900Mhz, and your eyes absorb the most in the microwave ranges. This is compounded by the fact that your corneas don't have much way to dissipate heat, and are pretty sensitive organs.
Anyway, the original poster is right, don't play around with this stuff unless you understand it. Although, more likely to kill you taking a microwave oven apart is the 1000 volts at several amps that the power supply puts out. Nasty stuff. Much more dangerous than taking apart something like a monitor.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I wonder how it would work against a semi-perfect mirror? I've always wondered how a laser or something that would rely on waves would work against a reflective surface.. Can anyone give me a clue?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
This makes me wonder about security issues. Imagine if something powerful enough to direct these microwaves at glass from a distance. Lets also say the glass is bullet proof glass. Could that shatter the glass? Perhaps it doesn't destroy the glass but compromises its integrity to the point where teflon-coated bullets can penetrate it. Interesting....
With high voltage current you can melt holes in glass... Even a small TV induction coil will do.
Put the HV wires on either side, if it doesn't start arcing through it then increase the voltage... The problem is that the glass at the hole heats up and the expansion often breaks the rest of the sheet.
it doesn't work very well with good heat conductors or materials with very high melting points, but the researchers envision a wide variety of manufacturing applications, and possibly some medical uses as well
Right. I know human tissue doesn't conduct heat well, but does anybody know its melting point?
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Sapphire's melting point, for instance, is too high. And steel conducts heat too well for a hot spot to develop.
Somehow that gave me a mental image of a woman and a man being attacked by Time with more down-to-earth method instead of using parapsychological powers. (I wonder if anyone recognizes the reference ;)
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
In future news: You too can save microwaves from future extinction!
Forget the cost of the 500W laser. Have you priced a live shark lately?
I didn't have anything in it, and accidentally hit the cook button instead of the minute timer button. 20 Minutes later, POOF! The whole thing caught on fire. Turns out that the mixing belt failed, so it was all focused on the door. The engineer said, "Lucky you didn't loose the whole house! I've seen them burn straight through glass light bulbs...."
Pictures and story here.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Think of the possibilities for carving stone without cracking it. This could make it a lot easier for sculptors.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
The "magical" thing about 2.45 GHz is that it's in the middle of one of the ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) bands designated by the FCC. Since there are no licensed radio services right around there and any un-licensed service has to accept any interference it gets (you can't complain to the FCC that your neighbor's microwave interferes with your 2.45 GHz portable phone), everyone's microwave oven operates at 2.45 GHz.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I think this would rock for building a CPU heat exchanger. With hundreds of small tiny water filled holes it would wisk the heat away nicely.
the security people at the airport know how to identify the #$@%&* things!!!!
Has there been any investigation into the application of microwave feed horns as weapons? Just think about the possibilities if you could blind all of the enemy's forces from long range with a fairly common piece of equipment.
I suppose it'd probably be a MAJOR violation of the geneva convention to ever use any such weapon, but the geneva convention hasn't stopped Dubya yet...
In other news the next Star Wars will reference upgraded combat technology.
It's clear Palestinians don't use their heads, otherwise a peaceful resolution would have been achieved decades ago.
It would be best to target the genitalia of the palestinian subrace, so they cannot make any more bombs.
But if they cook from the inside out, why do the middle of the hot pockets always stay frozen?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
That could be a factor, surely there would be some savings in energy usage if they were.
Cutting transparent glass with a laser has to be hella ineficient.
Because your mom's chunky brown vaginal discharges defy the physics of the known Universe.