Drilling holes in soda glass

[garettc]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum and hope to learn a lot here. I was a laser enthusiast in high school, built a small CO2 laser that sort-of worked...

I have a need to drill a small hole in the end of a soda-lime glass tube, through which a 28 ga wire will go. It will then be sealed with solder-glass. (A second, larger hole for evacuating the tube might be advantageous to do with a laser, but it might also be easy to do with standard glass-working techniques.)

The glass thickness will be less than 1mm.

What kind of laser would you use? CO2? Yag? Pulsed or CW?

Thanks in advance!

 

[QSF]

On something like that you will just have to get a couple bottles and play a little bit. When I was messing around with glass, I pulsed with a co2 laser. You can cut regular glass fine with it, but don't try to cut safety glass, as it will shatter without heating it up first.

Gary L. Ellis Jr.
Quality Steel Fabrication
Sidney, OH
gellis@woh.rr.com

 

[19714]

you can use waterjet if is not temperglass