Warm-up target for a laser engraver
AssigneeAssa Abloy AB
InventorsMichael Jon Woizeschke, Timothy Joel Wolf
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A laser marking system comprises a laser energy source that generates a laser beam, a laser controller configured to focus the laser beam over a field of view greater than a size of laser-markable items, and a start-up target that includes laser-safe material and is located within the field of view. The laser controller is further configured to point the laser beam at the start-up target during a start-up phase of the laser energy source and focus the laser beam on one of the laser-markable items after the start-up phase.
Claims20
A laser marking system for marking laser-markable items, the system comprising:
- a laser energy source configured to generate a laser beam;
- a laser controller configured to focus the laser beam over a field of view greater than a size of the laser-markable items;
- a start-up target that includes laser-safe material that is safe from laser marking and is positioned at a place within the field of view that does not impede the marking of the laser-markable items;
- wherein the laser controller is further configured to:
- point the laser beam at the start-up target during a start-up phase of the laser energy source when one of the laser-markable items is positioned in the field of view, wherein energy of the laser beam transitions from an idle state energy to a steady state energy during the start-up phase;
- and
- focus the laser beam on the one of the laser-markable items after the start-up phase.
A method of operating a laser marking system, the method comprising:
- generating a laser beam using a laser energy source;
- positioning a laser-markable item in a field of view of the laser energy source;
- pointing the laser beam, during a start-up phase of the laser energy source, at a laser-safe start-up target that is positioned within a field of view of the laser energy to not impede marking of the laser-markable item, wherein the start-up target is safe from laser marking;
- transitioning energy of the laser beam from an idle state energy to a steady state energy during the start-up phase;
- and
- focusing the laser beam after the start-up phase on the laser-markable item.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.