1W Blue laser for $200

I know product images can be misleading, but is the rating on this laser as such you can see the beam?
 
I can see someone using this to blind a cop that's trying to pull you over.
 
WhiteZero said:
I know product images can be misleading, but is the rating on this laser as such you can see the beam?
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oh hell yes. WAY more power than you need to see the beam. 50mw is strong enough to see it in a lit room. 10mw and you could see the beam going pretty damn far into the night sky.

Just a year ago a 100mw was considered very strong for a handheld laser.
 
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WhiteZero said:
I know product images can be misleading, but is the rating on this laser as such you can see the beam?
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Depends on how much crap is in the air. You can get a decent beam with a 5mw red pointer + fog machine, and you won't get any beam no matter how powerful in a vacuum. Although to give you a general idea, ~30mw of green (our eyes are more sensitive to green than any other color) is good enough for quite a nice beam at night, maybe ~100mw in a not too bright room. 1W of blue should be quite spectacular even though our eyes are not as sensitive to it.
 
sl.124 said:
Depends on how much crap is in the air. You can get a decent beam with a 5mw red pointer + fog machine, and you won't get any beam no matter how powerful in a vacuum. Although to give you a general idea, ~30mw of green (our eyes are more sensitive to green than any other color) is good enough for quite a nice beam at night, maybe ~100mw in a not too bright room. 1W of blue should be quite spectacular even though our eyes are not as sensitive to it.
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100mw in a room (lit up or not) is going to be too bright to look at for long at all without protection.

My 40mw greenie will give you a headache and make your eyes ache after a couple minutes of shining it on the walls. You can see the beam in a lit but not really bright room too.

The beam going into the night sky is quite impressive.
 
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Spectacular is not the word to describe it. You are a bloody idiot if you are not wearing goggles (same goes for everyone else around you) every time you even think about using this laser. You cannot really use it outdoors either as you'll cause permanent damage to people even over a hundred meters away (and the beam of course is much wider at that range).
 
I wonder for the people using it in their homes how quickly it will burn the walls. if you think about it, this is not a good man-toy.
 
jiminator said:
I wonder for the people using it in their homes how quickly it will burn the walls. if you think about it, this is not a good man-toy.
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Probably scorch it pretty quickly but you'd have to leave the beam in one spot a while to set the wall on fire.
 
IRSmurf said:
Holy cow. What would a projector need twenty four one watt lasers for?

Also, if you have found a forum where there is a lot of discussion regarding these lasers, would you care to link it, here? I'd love to hear what other people are saying / thinking about these.
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photonlexicon

Laser Pointer Forums

As for the 24W thing remember this is a projector. 24W isn't all that big if you want to project to a large surface like in class rooms.
 
I can see laws getting passed if a lot of laser accidents start making news headlines. This laser is awesome, but no way in hell will I buy one.

I see people with those little laser pointer thingies at the movies though. They shine them at the screen.
 
Blue Fox said:
If you really want to get an idea of how powerful this thing is, at 0.25km, it is still as bright as a 5mW laser from 1.25m (if you consider equal divergence), so it will still be bright enough to blind (temporarily at least). A 5mW laser should be visible from a couple km/miles away and if you do the math, if you were to point it at the ISS (when directly underneath), for them it would be as bright as a 5mW laser from 1.7km away. So, in theory, visible from space. At that distance the beam width is about 0.5km too. Just remember that the last thing this is is a toy...
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So how much wattage do you need to destroy the optics on a satellite in low earth orbit?
 
Could you imagine if star-wars kid had one of these... The first time someone picks up one of these and decides to wave it around like its the toy (and it does look like a toy) well blindness and flesh burning all sound like horrible consequences.

A 1w laser does seem excessive, I don't have much experience with high powered lasers, but any practical application for a hand held laser seems like it could be achieved in a much lower power that wouldn't cause permanent blindness. Its not like they send enough glasses to properly show this thing off anyway.

On a side note has this gotten anyone exited about military lasers being only a few stepping stones away if this is what we can currently get. I don't think these are going to increase the number incidents that people are misusing lasers at airports and whatnot. Just seems impractical for people who like their vision.
 
Yea I have a 45w green laser pointer and I have always treated it with respect. But the second I let one of my friends touch it they shine it in people's windows and stuff. There is absolutely no way I would let them touch this thing for a second if I had one.
 
siliconnerd said:
Not sure, but the Grand Coolie Dam laser light show uses 2x12w and 2x30w lasers, but that is for projecting 1100-4000 feet away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Light_Show_(Grand_Coulee_Dam) I bet for a light show inside, 1w would be plenty.
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The Grand Coulee show is pretty bright, and shines on water pouring over the dam - so it's got a white backdrop. I'm pretty sure the blue would show up too.

Wow, I didn't realize that reflected light from a wall could do eye damage... Damn, Scary stuff.
 
Blue Fox said:
If you really want to get an idea of how powerful this thing is, at 0.25km, it is still as bright as a 5mW laser from 1.25m (if you consider equal divergence), so it will still be bright enough to blind (temporarily at least). A 5mW laser should be visible from a couple km/miles away and if you do the math, if you were to point it at the ISS (when directly underneath), for them it would be as bright as a 5mW laser from 1.7km away. So, in theory, visible from space. At that distance the beam width is about 0.5km too. Just remember that the last thing this is is a toy...
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Can you imagine the kind of trouble you'd get in if you blinded an astronaut on the ISS? And you thought shining lasers at airplanes was bad!
 
The thing that makes this laser scary is a general lack of education about the dangers of lasers. Every 12 year old knows a handgun can hurt, but yet we hear stories about stupid kids doing stupid stuff with handguns and hurting themself or somebody else.

Not every person will realize a laser like this can do serious damage, thus the likelihood of an injury is greater from something like this than with even a handgun.
 
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Definitely agree.
I bet there will be a large wave of laser-specific laws in the near future.
Kinda crazy to think this could be responsible for the government one day recognizing lasers as weapons.
 
You already have stuff like this happening today. Hey, lets see if I can tag that airplane!!!
 
Did laser technology advance significantly recently ? Because the last breaking news I heard on this front was the 200mw "dilda" (this really isn't a censor bypass, the Chinese couldn't spell the word correctly so that is the name that was popularized) red lasers

How in the heck are 1W blue lasers popping up ? And why in the heck would a projector need 24 1W laser diodes ?
 
jiminator said:
You already have stuff like this happening today. Hey, lets see if I can tag that airplane!!!
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Yep, people have been arrested for doing that already: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/23237 With the way these things are coming down in price to levels where people are buying them just to play with, I wouldn't be surprised if there are laws passed in the next few years to regulate these the same as handguns.
 
Best Laser info \ good deal site on the web---> http://laserpointerforums.com/

Very friendly members and honest people. I picked up my Optotronics 168mW Green laser there for $160 2nd hand. Best unnecessarily powerful thing I ever bought. :D
 
neokeelo said:
Best Laser info \ good deal site on the web---> http://laserpointerforums.com/

Very friendly members and honest people. I picked up my Optotronics 168mW Green laser there for $160 2nd hand. Best unnecessarily powerful thing I ever bought. :D
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But what do you do with it? Seriously I have yet to see anyone provide a legitimate use for one of these.
 
The whole reason pointers over 1mw are banned from import was because some idiots (not just one!) were shining them at pilots at Sydney airport. Such pointers aren't just banned from import at Aus, at NSW they are outright banned from possession. If the cops find you with one there and you can't answer why you have it you're fucked.
 
I'm seriously concerned with the terroristic uses of these things. Shine one in the cockpit of an airplane that's landing or taking off and both pilots are instantly blinded. Shine one at an airplane in the sky and it would still likely cause serious disorientation and visual impairment.

Although I don't know much about optics, I don't imagine it would be too hard for someone to develop a system of optics for focusing the beam at X distance away. What's to stop someone from buying ten of these (or more), building a giant laser array, and then using a laser range finder and adjustable optics system to focus them all at the same point and burn a hole in an airplane in the sky?

Scary, scary stuff. I've always wanted to buy like a 50mw green laser to play around with, but this thing should be illegal.
 
siliconnerd said:
They work great for astronomy. Unlike the red laser pointers, you can see the beam.
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Colour has nothing to do with beam visibility. Most red lasers that wind up in consumer hands tend to be a lot less powerful then green ones. You also do not need a 1w laser for astronomy. A cheap 5mw green one will do.
 
Blue Fox said:
Colour has nothing to do with beam visibility. Most red lasers that wind up in consumer hands tend to be a lot less powerful then green ones. You also do not need a 1w laser for astronomy. A cheap 5mw green one will do.
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the first sentence is very wrong. green lasers are MUCH easier to see than red.

you are right about the 5mw green being plenty for star pointing though.
 
Yes, green is easier to see than red. I was trying to make a point that given enough power, you can see the beam of a red laser as well.
 
So, fo' real, are there any pictures of this device actually being used? :p
 
robble said:
That would be a disaster with this laser.
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You know, my dad had a thought: this could be used in Iraq/Afghanistan/war-in-general.

It would be REALLY bad if the Taliban and insurgents got ahold of these. D:

I bet you could quickly clear houses with a couple 1W lasers and some helmets with $150+ protective visors.

And then snipers ... just imagine the horror they could experience if a soldier shined it in the right direction.

Someone could build a minigun with 8+ pipes of 1W lasers.

Someone could make a ring that they wear on their body -- or maybe composed or multiple rings. Each ring could have a laser pointing away from the person, and have 8+ 1W lasers. Each ring would rotate in different directions/speeds.

Then imagine the potential chaos that could ensue in various places around the world ... like in New York, or Afghanistan, or Africa, or a FIFA World Cup soccer game, or a museum of glass, or a museum/place of jewelry and diamonds, or in prison (if you could manage to sneak one in), or in bathrooms of mirror-frenzy, or a swimming pool/center, or against a riot, or against anti-riot/SWAT (of course you could expect being shot at, but if you aimed carefully and had some luck on your side...), or in places like Korea/China when there are protests, or one of those nudist people that run out onto the field during a soccer game could use one of these 1W lasers to prolong their attention, or use in a [high-speed?] pursuit, or ...



Someone could even mod one of these onto a paintball sentry turret and have it activate the laser when it sights and engages at a target.



Question: How thick is the laser beam? :?
 
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Cerulean said:
Question: How thick is the laser beam? :?
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It's 1.5mm wide at the exit point of the laser and expands around 1.5mm for every additional meter. The NOHD of this laser is 211 meters (692 feet), which means that anything closer can blind you (although, realistically, you could probably still be blinded by prolong exposure at further distances.) The problem is that, if I did my math right, at 211 meters the width of the beam is around 1 foot. So really you would only need to shine the laser at a person's face and they would have serious issues. You wouldn't even need to aim for the eye.
 
Cerulean said:
You know, my dad had a thought: this could be used in Iraq/Afghanistan/war-in-general.
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it is against the geneva convention to use lasers to blind people during war.

Question: How thick is the laser beam? :?[/QUOTE]

Eriksrocks said:
It's 1.5mm wide at the exit point of the laser and expands around 1.5mm for every additional meter.
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you sure about that? that's a fairly big spread. focusing could use a little more quality control.
 
robble said:
you sure about that? that's a fairly big spread. focusing could use a little more quality control.
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The Wicked Lasers site rates the beam divergence as <1.5mRad. A laser with a beam divergence of 1.0mRad will have a beam that expands 1.0mm per meter. So I'm assuming worst case scenario. I'm guessing it's pretty close to 1.5mRad though.
 
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