Moderation note: The first post of this thread was moved from the introduction forum thread ”BeamQ Laser Pointers Here”
Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigD
Welcome to hypography, beamq. I look forward to reading about your laser exploits, and any other sci/tech stuff that you’re into.  We ought to take this to a science projects or engineering thread to get into the details, but in short, in the US, laser pointers can’t legally have more than 0.005 W output. Even adding some optics, I don’t think any hobbyist work could make that burn or ignite common materials.
A typical DVD burner has about 0.245 W output. Various folk have extracted the diode laser from them and built little handheld lasers that can burn stuff using 3 V DC power or so, which you can get from a pair or more of ordinary 1.5 V batteries (AA, AAA, etc).
Obviously, you wouldn’t want to use such a thing to point at a whiteboard or play with your cats.  Seriously, you don’t want to play at all with a laser of that power, but follow laser lab safety protocols – such lasers can blind you.  |
This company sells a laser pointer that can burn through cardboard and ignite fireworks fuses and matches.
Laserglow - Hercules High Powered Green Laser
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Michael
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