Laser product idea?

I was at the club last night with a group of friends and while I enjoyed myself, I happened to have an idea while watching this lovely woman light up her Virgina Slim Menthol.

She was using one of those 'jet' lighters and I thought, "How could would it be to have a small lighter that used a high-power Red or Green laser instead of flame?

Now, I'm not talking where this is basically just a pointer but a closed system. Think of a lighter with a "U" shape at the top. Between the two arms of the U is where the laser beam would be, thus unless a mirror or reflective material is placed into the beam, no laser light would be beamed out of the lighter. The "U" could be just a gap just slightly larger than the diameter of a regular cig.

Being able to see the beam would be a nice addition but not totally needed.


Don't know how powerful this would need to be or if it is even possible yet, but it would be a great item. One of these is perfect for a permanent lighter. No fuel, could use rechargable batts, and great conversational piece.

Probably years off but it would be pretty nice.

Hey bschott...
you need to do a little research... the [Search] button works even
better on the new LPF...
This Laser Lighter idea has already been done by a well known member here....

Jerry

Yup, by rog8811

Keep an eye out for mine. Finally got the last piece of the puzzle today hehe

lasersbee said:

Hey bschott...
you need to do a little research... the [Search] button works even
better on the new LPF...
This Laser Lighter idea has already been done by a well known member here....

Jerry

Click to expand...

Thanks for the backhand. I'm well aware of the search button but I didn't think anyone would have thought of the idea.

I had an idea, fleshed it out, and thought I would share it. I had no idea someone already thought of it. I present an idea to whom I thought of as a new group of friends and you act as if I committed a cardinal sin. Oh stop the presses! Someone else already had the idea so anyone else is an idiot for ever having the same idea. Gotcha.


Nice way to keep the newer users around by treating them horribly. Do I care what you think? No, since you seem to be a sarcastic person who likes to belittle others.

For the others who were nicer about it, thanks. To Jerry, because of your post (not that you care) I won't be giving an of your future posts any review. That's sad considering you may actually have some good information to share but with that chip on your shoulder, one less person will be paying attention to your posts.

Woooops .... Hey B, I think you may have taken Jerry the wrong way - I've seen him when he's sarcastic, and it ain't pretty, but that wasn't it (at least I didn't see it that way)...

Not trying to meddle or anything, just didn't want to see anyone misconstrue a statement and end up feeling bad, etc.

Don't take it personal. now having said that. think about this. do you really want to shine the power it takes to light a cig pointed directly at your face, and focused to burn?

BrewCityMusic said:

Woooops .... Hey B, I think you may have taken Jerry the wrong way - I've seen him when he's sarcastic, and it ain't pretty, but that wasn't it (at least I didn't see it that way)...

Not trying to meddle or anything, just didn't want to see anyone misconstrue a statement and end up feeling bad, etc.

Click to expand...

I'm more upset at Frothy's belittling than Jerry... Just having both Jerry and Frothy go off like this in literally a few hours apart left me upset and perhaps I took him the wrong way. I don't know but it really felt like a backhanded post.

chipdouglas said:

Don't take it personal. now having said that. think about this. do you really want to shine the power it takes to light a cig pointed directly at your face, and focused to burn?

Click to expand...

Ah but see that is the beauty of my post. I was mentioning a laser that would have been a closed system. The laser would fire between two arms of a "U" form, so no harmful beam exposure like the one shown by Rog (I love his burner, don't get me wrong).

Rough, quick and dirty paint .jpg shows kinda the idea I meant.

bschott said:

Thanks for the backhand. I'm well aware of the search button but I didn't think anyone would have thought of the idea.

I had an idea, fleshed it out, and thought I would share it. I had no idea someone already thought of it. I present an idea to whom I thought of as a new group of friends and you act as if I committed a cardinal sin. Oh stop the presses! Someone else already had the idea so anyone else is an idiot for ever having the same idea. Gotcha.


Nice way to keep the newer users around by treating them horribly. Do I care what you think? No, since you seem to be a sarcastic person who likes to belittle others.

For the others who were nicer about it, thanks. To Jerry, because of your post (not that you care) I won't be giving an of your future posts any review. That's sad considering you may actually have some good information to share but with that chip on your shoulder, one less person will be paying attention to your posts.

Click to expand...

Hey bschott,
don't eat your shorts....

I was merely pointing out that had you done a simple search.. you would
have know that it had already been done... and you could have seen
the way it was done so you could perhaps even improve on it.. and post
about something new here..

I'm sorry that you misunderstood my post and that I hurt your feelings
as I see I did by your so eloquent response...

BTW Frothy didn't even post on this thread...


Jerry

lasersbee said:

Hey bschott,
don't eat your shorts....

I was merely pointing out that had you done a simple search.. you would
have know that it had already been done... and you could have seen
the way it was done so you could perhaps even improve on it.. and post
about something new here..

I'm sorry that you misunderstood my post and that I hurt your feelings
as I see I did by your so eloquent response...

BTW Frothy didn't even post on this thread...


Jerry

Click to expand...

No he posted in another thread and after reading his response and yours (see I normally read new posts, especially in threads I posted in, before replying in any of them) I felt pretty put off and hence the responses.

Anyway, bygones and bygones. Call it a misunderstanding and we can move on

So given that, I can definately accept any thoughts (good/bad/ugly) on an idea of a 'closed loop' kind of lighter. I was thinking 'damn, I don't want to fire a laser near my eyes but that would be cool as a lighter!', then I thought of how to have a closed loop and the idea of the old stun guns (with the two prods) came to mind and I thought "Well if you fire a laser beam between two upright arms and no beam is allowed to escape from the lighter, that would be safer than a straight beam lighter"

I didn't know if it would be possible to build a safer laser lighter like this since the module would probably need to be down where the 'fluid tank' of a regular lighter is, bounce against a mirror that would direct the laser out across the gap in the "U", hit another small mirror inside the other "U" arm and then probably end up hitting some absorbent/resistant material....or maybe a pulsed laser or some kind of timed firing (a single press on the activation button allows a 2-3 second beam?)

Concidering the module sizes, battery requirements and mirror sizes, this probably is just a lofty idea until lasers start reducing in size or such things happen with the batteries. I just don't know.

Anyway, that's my thoughts.

I can see trouble with the beam dump, anything dark would potentially heat up, and anything, well, NOT dark would risk reflection ...

I kinda figured that would be the case. Well it was worth a post

you would still need goggles. and like brew said non dark risks major reflection. and cigs are white. it is still a cool design though. are you talking 2 diodes, 1 one each side? If you machined the whole thing out of aluminum you would have great heatsinking. and plenty of room for drivers and batts. But there is still the ever looming feasability factor.

michael

also the other problem is that cigarrette paper, even though it is thin, is still white, so it would be harder for it to absorb heat from any wavelength laser under 100mw-ish.

just a thought, i could be wrong though.

I was thinking one diode shooting across the gap. Perhaps some kind of diffusion plates or material that can absorb the laser light (I hear that the reentry plate material the shuttle uses would stand up to something like this)

Here is a VERY basic/rough idea.


Again, probably not workable but just brainstorming here