more oomph please

Hi,
I'm building a prop for "The Revenge of the Pink Panther" & I've managed to put toghether an ok death ray using a single mirror tunnel. the question is what can I do to punchup the visibility?

I'm currently using a laser pointer from Fry's. I have replaced the 2 AA batteries with a wall wart & I'm running the motor & laser at 3v. I've tried boosting the motor power to increase the rotation but that just made the tunnel steadier not brighter. I briefly fed the pointer 4.5v & didn't see any real change in brightness. I'm guessing there is some voltage regulation built in to the pointer but I really don't want to push it; this needs to be reliable. There's nothing worse than a stage effect that dosen't go off on que.

The cone shoots through a pvc tube wich acts as the "Doomsday Device's" (TM) barrel. I have a small fogger behind the laser enclosed in a highly pressurised box this forces the fog to blow out the barrel allong with the beam.

Hazing the theater is not really an option this is a short lived effect.

Here's the effect as I have it working now. We are probably going to have to dim the stage lights durring performance but the less the better.

how many mw is the laser? and what are you going to do to get the fog?
nice work BTW

Yeah it's a 5 mw pointer... but the nice thing is I could buy it off the shelf.

the fog is from a small Gemmy fogger it shoots out the same place the beam comes out of.

I have the rig punched through the side of a sealed box. The fog machine is inside the box hehind the mirror. I have a high pressure squirrell cage blowing in the box this drives the fog past the laser & mirror & out the pvc pipe.

This setup lets me quickly fog up the shaft of air that the laser cone shoots through. The second picture is with fog leftovers. I messed around a bit blasting the fog then I decided to get my camera & take some pics.

I did figger out that too mutch fog kills the beam.

Hrmmm I wonder if I would be better served putting a hazer in the box rather than a fogger....

For more brightness you're gonna need more power. The laser you have might be "pot moddable", take a look around on this forum to see how to pot mod a laser.

Well blank me running!
I just blewup my greenie :'( :'(
If it had voltage protection not enough to deal w/ 12v. I went to do some tweaking to the mirror & plugged in the laser only I forgot that I had been using the brick to test some 12v stuff & still had it switched to 12v. ran vor about a min. then the laser went out & the mirror went screamming fast.

I'm guessing I fried it good.

well it looks like you are going to need a new one! ;D well take a look at dealextreme.com, they have very cheap high powered greenies, and free shipping i think?

I saw that.
The only thing I worry about is that there's no filter. I'm building this prop for a public presentation. I can't ask an audience to wear goggles.

The beam was to shoot over the main audience & below the balcony seats.

I'm guessing that with a scanning setup there's little likelyhood of burning objects with the beam on say a 20mw.

I also worry about running afoul of some regulation using a higher power laser.

Ir is not a factor on any dx true laser under 50mw. Plus it runs off aaa batterys so you need not fry it. And as you're making a tunnel the light wont be focused at one point so should cause no problems to health or safety. I'd say get a 20 or 30mw for the best effect.

personally i think IR is pretty much no problem whatsoever from a green laser unless ur sitting in a dark room with lasershades burning really close. Personal belief however. i mean IR generally diverges really rapidly and it just dont have the power to do much damage over any realistic distance. id be more worried about laws and regulations!

Well I got Fry's to RMA the old laser. I have a 30 on order from DX but it won't get here before opening night