Green Laser

Spark said:
So how much output is there on the ones that can pop balloons and such?
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125 mW will definitely pop a rubber balloon (should be fun if balloon was filled with hydrogen, but also dangerous ...), light a match, burn through plastic (you know, plastic bags one gets in stores and such), destroy portion CCD sensor that the beam struck and mostlikely damage one's eyesight permanently, verified on all accounts but the last point but given that it destroyed everything else mentioned above I wouldn't want to put my eyes on the test (especially since I got flashed with camera flash in total darkness once ... it literally took me weeks before the rectangular shape of the flash was gone from my field of vision, it was as if it was imprinted on everything I saw).

Strong enough a laser will damage you eye permanently even when pointed elsewhere (say at a wall or a window), just because the refelction is strong enough.

There's also plenty of other sources avaliable on the 'Net. Check this one out for example.
 
Esav, the 3 dimensional texture I can produce is called Mokumanium because it gives the look of Mokume or Damascus on titanium. It is a different and simpler process than Timascus. It takes all the wattage I can throw at it. It's a technique that I have a patent pending on. Here's a pic:
mokrandom.jpg

This is something that works on knife blades as well. I have a little buck knife that I turned into a Damascus look.
 
how many watts would be required to cut 5mm stainless steel (knife steel)?

how much would a laser like that cost?
 
Cutting stainless of 5mm might take at least 750 watts. Used lasers vary quite a bit in price, but something like that might usually go in the range of $50,000 to $75,000, although I just saw a few ones over 1000 watts on e-bay in the $10 to 15K range. Larger ones used in industry are often in the range of $250K to $750K or so new.
 
cool. even though i dont have 10k. i wonder how much they will cost in a few years, do lasers become "old"?
 
Those appear to be a fantastic deal. Both ones I saw on e-bay are name brands; Rofin Sinar and PRC. I believe that those are for the lasers themselves and don't include the moving table such as a CNC machine table. Tables could be moved with jigs and fixtures by hand if you got clever enough though. The 1350 watt PRC looks exactly like the laser at the heart of the $750,000 laser I used to work on. It has a turbine to jet gasses into the laser chamber at nearly the speed of sound to get more efficiency from the lasing process. It utilizes a U shaped lasing tube so that the actual length of the tube would be something like 15' long. It has an output beam about the size of a quarter that gets focused down to about .015" or so. I would test the mirrors by blasting holes in cardboard or wood before it got focused down. It would blast a charred area into the cardboard instantly, and from the shape and orientation of the burn, you could adjust the copper mirrors. The beam itself is far infrared, so is not visible.

The laser takes bottles of nitrogen, CO2, and helium to work. It also takes a huge amount of electricity. I imagine it takes 460 volt 3 phase at pretty high amperage. The problem with laser like those is if something goes wrong they are seriously expensive to work on. Just the lenses and mirrors are extremely expensive, like hundreds for the lenses and thousands for the mirrors. I would expect to pay something like $75,000 for a used sytem like that, (I looked for one when I bought mine!) so 10K is way down there already.
 
For civilian use, modifying a laser pointer to increase the output power puts you in a risky legal position if someone is injured by it because you knowingly and deliberately did the modification knowing what the result of that modification would be which could* be interpreted as intent or could* be seen as raising your level of responsibility which means the injury could* go from from accident to assult which means the case could* move from civil to criminal and, in addition to everything else that entails, that could* mean that any insurance you have won't pay.

I'm not saying don't do it; but if you do it, just be careful and know what you could* be getting into.




* To determine if any of these bad things might happen, the total circumstance would have to be considered. But, if you deliberately modify the laser, the chances of these bad things happening could* be increased.
 
When I was in High School, my science teacher popped a bag full of Hydrogen from across the room with a laser. It sounded like a shotgun. If he did that these days, the school would be swarming with cops.
 
Because of the concentrated parallel beam, lasers really focus down to a pinpoint on a retina and do cause serious damage. I've probably got a few scars from my hologram making days. You usually wake up in the middle of the night screaming when you get a bad laser or welder burn on your eyes.

I have one of those green laser shown above for astronomy. You need to really fight the urge to see what it's like to reflect off an airplane. :eek: They'll find you and lock you up for that.
 
5mW green lasers from a good source (Atlas Nova in my case) will really light up a screen in a large auditorium. The person I bought it from really discouraged me from buying it because it was TOO bright. He was right.

Keep in mind though, I'm talking about REAL power, not advertised power. Meter your laser point at 5mW true power and it will outshine laser pointers rated at more power which are restricted with keys and other crap.

I think mine cost ~$80 delivered and it really works.

I also got two red ones at 635 and 650 nM and there is a real difference in brightness. Again both were tested for true power output so, 5mW is real power not an advertising boast.

That green one is too much to use in anything short of an auditorium that seats 100 people with a screen that is 50 feet wide. I can't imagine using one with more power as anything other then a weapon replacing a firearm.
 
If you blind a Zombie, will that stop them or will they be able to use their sense of smell/hearing to continue an attack? I figure they will keep comming as old/dead/dried out eyes are prolly not to effective anyhow and they must be using their other senses imo.

Looking at ebay... their are some decent power to price lasers,... but not knowing the manufacturer on some, its really a gamble imo.
 
Sid Post said:
I also got two red ones at 635 and 650 nM and there is a real difference in brightness. Again both were tested for true power output so, 5mW is real power not an advertising boast.
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Percieved brightness, that is, I presume - 5 mW is 5mW at any wavelength, it's just that your "sensors" (eyes) are quite non-linear and non-uniform across the entire visible spectrum.

Oh and regarding avaliability: 100+ mW lasers that can cause serious damage (as described above) can be had for ~$500 from China. And yes, laser diodes (like the ones mentioned) do have a lifespan so when they get "old", they are worn out. It depends on cooling, manufacturing and use but eventually they will die.
 
btboone said:
Those appear to be a fantastic deal. Both ones I saw on e-bay are name brands; Rofin Sinar and PRC. I believe that those are for the lasers themselves and don't include the moving table such as a CNC machine table. Tables could be moved with jigs and fixtures by hand if you got clever enough though. The 1350 watt PRC looks exactly like the laser at the heart of the $750,000 laser I used to work on. It has a turbine to jet gasses into the laser chamber at nearly the speed of sound to get more efficiency from the lasing process. It utilizes a U shaped lasing tube so that the actual length of the tube would be something like 15' long. It has an output beam about the size of a quarter that gets focused down to about .015" or so. I would test the mirrors by blasting holes in cardboard or wood before it got focused down. It would blast a charred area into the cardboard instantly, and from the shape and orientation of the burn, you could adjust the copper mirrors. The beam itself is far infrared, so is not visible.

The laser takes bottles of nitrogen, CO2, and helium to work. It also takes a huge amount of electricity. I imagine it takes 460 volt 3 phase at pretty high amperage. The problem with laser like those is if something goes wrong they are seriously expensive to work on. Just the lenses and mirrors are extremely expensive, like hundreds for the lenses and thousands for the mirrors. I would expect to pay something like $75,000 for a used sytem like that, (I looked for one when I bought mine!) so 10K is way down there already.
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great post. that pretty much answered all my questions. ive been reading up on lasers and its very fascinating technology indeed. i had a feeling it would be quite expensive to get a metalcutting laser, and the cnc controlling system and tables etc.
 
Sort of like owning an airplane. On first sight, a $15,000 airplane looks like a good deal...
 
faramir said:
Percieved brightness, that is, I presume - 5 mW is 5mW at any wavelength, it's just that your "sensors" (eyes) are quite non-linear and non-uniform across the entire visible spectrum.
Click to expand...

Yes, your eyes are more sensitive to some wavelengths. That's one reason why aircraft avionics are typically green and map lights are typically red.
 
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