News
new 30mm clear aperture laser articulating arm
Alban are very pleased to announce they have developed a Laser Articulated Arm with a 30mm clear aperture. This is much larger than the industry standard 16 or 19mm. It opens up applications for (galvo) scanned input beams, for sophisticated computer controlled beam profiles on the output. Alternatively it allows substantially larger beam diameter and divergence angles without clipping for industrial applications. Suitable for CO2, Nd:YAG, Laser Diode, Ruby, HeNe for Mid IR , through visible to UV. From mW to 500W
announcement
Alban Laser Systems Ltd. is pleased to announce the appointment/promotion of Nick Clark to Managing Director.
Founding director, majority owner and former Managing Director, Ray Todhunter, will remain as CEO and Director but in a less involved day-to-day role
gravity balanced articulating laser arms
Articulating arms deliver Laser Energy for surgical procedures including Dentistry, Aesthetic etc.
The arm may have a mass between 1 and 3kgs, for a surgeon to operate accurately and precisely the mass of the arm must be balanced.
There are 2 methods to achieve this mass balanced and spring balanced.
Which is best….. Let’s consider
Mass balanced, the counter torque will have the same formula and therefore it is possible to almost perfectly balance the arm
For spring balanced (red line) the spring rate is linear, unless a very complex mechanism is employed, therefore the arm will only balance in one or 2 positions. If the arm is balanced say horizontally then the arm Torque will reduce as it travels beyond horizontal but the spring force will continue to rise and the Force pulling the arm back to horizontal back will increase giving a poor operator feel.
STEM work experience student joins us for the day
Always great to have a work experience student in. A little basic laser physics and optics theory with some hands on experimentation. Then helping out in manufacturing, alignment and inspection/dispatch. He did a fantastic job and we were pleased to have him join us.
advanced aerospace carbon fibre for optimal performance
Laser articulated arms are designed with the laser beam well aligned in position and angle while the arm is moved “articulated”. The arm lengths may have unsupported spans of up to 3m. They are also required to carry the mass of the distal fitting handpiece and internal optics.
During operation, movement by a surgeon for example, they will be force loaded in shear. This will cause the tubes to bend and dynamically misalign the output laser beam. Designing high stiffness tubes is important but it is essential that the tubes remain well within their elastic limits. As spans and loads increase metal tubes must be thicker walled or have additional support pieces. These metal tubes then become increasingly heavy and at risk of permanent deformation in use. There is also a risk of degradation in performance during repetitive operation, “fatigue” and they will take on a permanent deformation “bend”.
With advanced aerospace carbon fibre tubes the properties, such as modulus of elasticity can be manipulated to optimise the performance while still keeping them light. Alban use custom designed carbon fibre tubes for all their laser articulating arms
celebrate success
On the 30th of May 2022, Alban light Systems Ltd celebrated its success on the production of its 3000th laser articulating arm. Thanks to our guests Alison McLeod of Technology Scotland, Douglas Chapman MP and Paul Sykes of Fife Chamber of Commerce.
technology scotland
On May 10th 2022, Alban Light Systems joined Technology Scotland which includes Photonics Scotland
laser world of photonics
Alban were present at the huge laser world of Photonics conference and exhibition in Munich April 26-29 2022