[A Fine Gent]

I saw a few videos on youtube that interested me about strong lasers that could pop a balloon. Anyone know what the strongest laser I could buy in Ireland or even make by my self, I have all the tools needed but I just have no idea where to start getting my parts
Any help would be much appreciated!

[Pdfile]

Originally Posted by A Fine Gent

I saw a few videos on youtube that interested me about strong lasers that could pop a balloon. Anyone know what the strongest laser I could buy in Ireland or even make by my self, I have all the tools needed but I just have no idea where to start getting my parts
Any help would be much appreciated!

use the blu ray lense out of a blu ray drive as they are potically powerful then get as much beam behind it as you can manage without over heating the supply.

[the_syco]

Have a seen a few on sale on dealextreme, but unknown if they'd get past customs.

[tuxy]

Originally Posted by the_syco

Have a seen a few on sale on dealextreme, but unknown if they'd get past customs.

I purchased some fairly powerful laser from there about a year ago. No problems with customs back then anyway.

[Lu Tze]

Originally Posted by Pdfile

use the blu ray lense out of a blu ray drive as they are potically powerful then get as much beam behind it as you can manage without over heating the supply.

I remember reading that the original xbox dvd drive had a ridiculously powerful laser once you adjusted the resistance (there was some form of variable resistor in the circuit)

[tuxy]

The thing about blu ray(violet in colour) is that it's in a spectrum of light that is not picked up so well by the human eye.(although it can still do loads of damage which may be worse as it's less noticeable) Red lasers look ok but if you want something that's impressive and can be seen very long distances go for green.

[Popoutman]

A note for all of the lasers that pop balloons: it's not the visible light that does that, but it's the IR laser light that has the point heating effect.
If you are modding a laser diode, please be extremely careful, and try to work with a camera that has IR capability (take the IR cut filter from a webcam and put a filter on it that shows IR only) as the IR beam may not be coincidental with the visible light beam, and is almost certain to have a different divergence to the visible beam (chromatic aberrations in the collimation lens).
You'll not know that you've fried your retina until you hear/feel the "pop" of your retinal tissue boiling..

You can have a properly bright visible light laser that has no IR component - that would be considered safe (if dazzling). However most of the cheap double-pumped laser pointers and all of the modded drive diodes will have huge leakage of IR. Using an IR sensitive camera was an eye-opener for me.