To begin my process of failure and recalibration I did some tests with my water atomizer once it arrived. I I found that the device wasn’t producing as much mist as I wanted it to and that The laser did not have as good a reaction with it as it did with smoke. I am hoping that once the box is built it works better because the humidity will be trapped inside.
I laser cut all my parts earlier this week. I ran into some trouble when cutting them because I cut them reflective film up and the film melted in weird ways I then had to peel off the etched film where I rastered images into the sheet. This did however result in a neat rainbow effect of light refraction where the etching happened.
I also ran into trouble with tolerances. Part of my design involved fitting a smaller wooden box into a larger one. I had to sand down the smaller box once it was built in order to get it to fit inside the larger one.
Finally I did some preliminary testing before painting and assembly. Here are the results of those tests.
As a result of these tests I found the laser could shine out of the air vents in certain configurations. I may need to engineer a light blocker that does not restrict air flow to make it safer.