Killer laser:

Jan Panteltje wrote in news:f9va8a$53p$1 @aioe.org:

The important question is, what sort of useful tasks could a home hobbyist do with it? A magician could light flash paper from a distance, and a home pyrotechnician could trigger fireworks, without risking his hands.

But could it be used to ignite an alcohol lamp, a backyard barbecue or a kitchen stove? Could it ignite a piece of tissue paper or a piece of newspaper? How does the surface energy flux compare to a child's assemblage of sunlight and a magnifying glass rig?

And how long would it take for the beam to become painful, if trained onto someone's skin? Rather than debate it's legality, lifetime or mechanism, we must look for applications. :[~

On a sunny day (Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:20:43 GMT) it happened John Schutkeker wrote in :

Sure, I have been thinking several times about an insect zapper. I have this nice camera system with servos I designed, and just this morning I was thinking about mounting the laser on it (so it can quickly point anywhere). Of course a simple movable mirror system would work too, and be faster. The challenge is to get a good location in 3D space, maybe 2 cameras to create a 3D model, then, at low power, point the laser, or scan it near the insect, it would show up as a bright dot when hit, then increase the laser power to burn it. What would help with this, is a 10M$ grant from DOD, so once it works it can be adapted for bigger lasers :-) Any ideas?

Jan Panteltje wrote in news:fa1hj1$a7q$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

I'm sure you can find DOD's grant submission page without my help. It soulds like a good, low power, low cost prototype that would prove concept for the large scale system.

Spehro Pefhany wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Are theorists chopped liver?

What are we, chopped liver?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Only theoretically.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Jan Panteltje wrote in news:fa1f8q$47b$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

I don't think thsat sticking a fork into a sausage is a fair analogy for soldering on those electrode extenders, nor getting the assemblage to fit tightly into the "cap" of the flashlight. Notice also that the guy didn't say anything about aligning the beam, after it's mounted. In a professionally built system, there would be "set screws" for that, which is a whole 'nother little design and assembly problem.

For complecity and difficulty, this problem definitely outranks the building of the model railroads. ;(

Now that's something that *I* can do. :p

On a sunny day (Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:37:05 GMT) it happened John Schutkeker wrote in :

With my eyes closed :-)

mm, the lens and holder for the laser diode is one piece, bit of 2 component glue works miracles. Heat it up for speed.

Never tried model railroads, I never understood why people would spend weeks, month, years building toy trains in the attic....

Thats is why it is all teamwork :-)

Two things -

First: The young college student I spoke of in a previous post to this thread - "was" found guilty this week - of using/having bomb making materials in his apartment. He is to be sentenced later on.

Second: As to application.......... As one pointed out before - a "lit" cigarette... Bad habit or delayed fuse igniter? A knife - is it being used to cut meat, open a box, etc? OR to "cut" or "stab" someone? A gun - to target practice, hunt or "murder"/"threaten one's life with"/"commit an Armed robbery" ? A Baseball bat - used to play baseball or smash someone's skull in?

"Application" - is the operative word. A big part of whatever is used. Yes, it can be looked upon as a "weapon"/"threat" or be considered for what it actually is.

As to the laser burning the skin or becoming painful - maybe if you do some google, you might find out. I would have to imagine, with all the "laser" surgery available - the doctors know this information and some or all is on line to be had. Asking this question - is almost like reinventing the wheel. Surely - some experimentation had to be done and caveats issued for lasers to be used as wide scale as they are.

I can't recall the company name - but when I was in High School, they were selling laser kits of at least a couple power levels - for what seemed to be not too bad a price. I'm sure the stuff is still out there - or at least plans. I browsed a book at a local Book Store and seen "Laser" plans - in it. Are all the parts available? I'm sure they are - somewhere.

Back in my high school days - lasers were "science" in motion, experimentation. Taking a container of a substance was usually considered a "Science project". Anyone taking a knife to school was paddled, the knife confiscated and that was usually the end of that. Today - the knife would be considered a criminal act of some degree - if not terrorism of some level. The "Substance" would probably bring about a HazMat Team response. The Laser! Yeah, many could wonder your intentions. It may be up to you to sell them your idea.

As some one already said - the world is nuts - and we've probably not even seen the worse.

L.

There's almost nothing that cannot be turned to evil. It just requires motivation, not technology. Remember a couple of relevant quotes:

"Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species-- back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire-- has been ethically ambiguous" .Carl Sagan and

"In my very early career, before the disenchantment, I helped develop methods of covert warfare for use in the Viet Nam war, including the making of explosives and incendiaries behind enemy lines from primitive materials. The world really didn't need my technical help in these matters. It already knew too much." ..............Dr Gerald L Hurst (was Chief Scientist at the Atlas Powder Company and .holds several explosives patents.)

Now, mount that on a shark.

-- Paul Hovnanian snipped-for-privacy@hovnanian.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------- There is no place like 127.0.0.1.

Bwuahahahahaah! An old DVD burner that has problems reading discs is simply out of calibration... Perfect candidate, and no need to buy a new drive for the job.

As for the assembly details, and kid that can build a model car can do this. Sheesh, get a clue. That or you are just so damned clumsy that you actually think an engineer is required for this less than one hour hobby craft task.

This remark is even more funny that the first!

You ain't real bright, are ya, boy?

Well, if you knew ANYTHING at all about what the term "flash point" means, you wouldn't even need to ask that question.

Lenses and sunlight are used to burn 6 inch diameter holes in 3 inch thick steel plates, so... what do you think? D'oh!

If it can ignite a natch, it can burn skin. Can you really be so far in the dark here?

No... *YOU* must look for a brain... *WE* already know what to do with such toys.

Some guys in Germany burned ten MB of data to a roll of shipping tape about 5 years ago.

Holographic storage "cubes" using two lasers are going to be a reality soon enough, just not from some guys DC powered, non-modulated hot pin prick device.

LEOs use lasers to temporarily blind people with.

They have lasers that can knock a dent into the side of a missile, and they have lasers on tank turrets that explode rogue ordinance from a distance already. There is also a test setup on Boeing airframes that use a laser to knock an anti-aircraft missile out of the sky.

It isn't anything new. Use some common sense, guys. We are at the toy level, and they are the big boys, and have far far more big toys than we do.

Are idiots dumb posters to Usenet?

...

It's to compensate for the childhood trauma of never getting one for Xmas. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

ChairmanOfTheBored wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

You get the *plonk* for being belligerent and having anti-social personality disorder, psychiatric patient. ?:(~

That will only help you for a couple days, till 'it' morphs, again.