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FrozenGate by Avery

Cook popcorn??

K

kinesis

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Jun 6, 2008
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Can a laser be strong enough to nuke a popcorn kernel and make it into it's final fluffy product?
or would it basically incinerate?
 





I always thought that would be neat to do but alas, I've burned every kernel I've tested. The power requirements to heat the water above boiling inside the kernel is too high for a laser since a laser applies power to only one side. I'm sure there is some magic combination of beam diameter and power output but it may require several lasers to heat the kernel from differing sides.
 
The age old problem eh? Tons of us tried this back on the LC a while ago, but alas, no sucess. Its not a lack of power, but an inability to distribute the power in the magical way a microwave can in order to get the kernel to pop. Maybe someday....
 
I have tried it before and all I managed to do was burn a hole into the kernel. The tricky part is heating the kernel evenly.
 
I was thinking that too.. but I think you gotta heat the whole kernel, not just the outside.
 
I even tried coating the kernel with food-colored oil....in hopes the oil would heat up enough. NOPE...nuthin but SMOKE and lots of it ! Man that stuff stinks when it burns....

To clarify - I spent an entire evening trying to prove Psuedo wrong on this one....well - <yummy crow !> he was right ! you can try it, and if you get it to work, that would be great - but generally I think you will end up with carbon instead of fluffy white popped corns :)
 
i've also tried and failed, i think i had like 300mw of laser power shining on a kernel, just burns it :(
 
SenKat_Stonetek said:
I even tried coating the kernel with food-colored oil....in hopes the oil would heat up enough.  NOPE...nuthin but SMOKE and lots of it !  Man that stuff stinks when it burns....

To clarify - I spent an entire evening trying to prove Psuedo wrong on this one....well - <yummy crow !> he was right !  you can try it, and if you get it to work, that would be great - but generally I think you will end up with carbon instead of fluffy white popped corns :)
Click to expand...

Man, don't even get me started! =P I even tried covering one side of a small copper disk (aka, a penny) with thermal paste and embedded a kernel in that. On the other side I put an absorptive coating (aka, sharpie) and blasted that thing with a 10W 808nm. Got enough smoke out of that paste to give me 10 kinds of cancer and the kernel even bubbled slightly, but I could still never get anything to pop before it burned.
 
Ive tried with 3 Lasers on tripods on it, it smoked like hell. never popped
powers were 132mw, 147mw, and 230mw.
 
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