HacDC's Optical Table

Status

Operational, standing on pneumatic legs.

Optical and mechanical hardware in progress. Gantry is planned to enable ultra high-accuracy and wide area CNC milling, laser cutting, and 3D printing.

Specifications

Not known with certainty, some estimations follow:

• Rigidity sufficient for safe mechanical use.
• Tapped holes.
• Steel surface, epoxy/metal honeycomb base.
• Can be kept level to within ~15nm.
• Heavy - 800 pounds (350kg).
• Pneumatic mounting.

Associated Equipment

• Big (~40x40mm) aluminum extrusions, sufficient to equip entire table with a gantry.
• Lens and mirror mounts.
• Wide variety of optical elements, lenses, mirrors, beam splitters, fibers, telescope, microscope, etc.
• Micro-manipulators.
• Lasers.
• High voltage (up to 6kW) power supplies.

Safety

High voltage power supplies and powerful lasers are dangerous, with a lot of subtle "gotchas". Don't play with them unless highly experienced.