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    Laser Pointer History 101 - A Look Back at Why Your Laser Pointers Got Banned

    Silly boy!! I simply stated that Class 4 handheld lasers are incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. And so are firearms. I did not equate the 2 as being equally dangerous. Just that are both dangerous. Read what is written, not what you want it to read.
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    Laser Pointer History 101 - A Look Back at Why Your Laser Pointers Got Banned

    Hand held lasers will be banned at some point The only question will be whether they are >1mW or >5mW They are incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands, just like firearms and look at how those are now regulated despite being a constitutional right. The aircraft incidents get the headlines but...
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    Non visible lasers

    Most nightvision scopes have IR illumination but not a collimated beam (laser). With suitable lenses, I guess that an IR diode could be adapted but non-visible lasers are incredibly dangerous simply because you can't see the beam/dot and so you need a lot of safety precautions in place before...
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    Why can laser pointers be so much cheaper than the diode alone?

    One of the answers is that the cheap diodes in the cheap lasers are overdriven. By using good heatsink you can overdrive a diode to produce more output than it was intended for. So a 500mW diode can be pushed to 1W or even higher but the build quality, heat sink etc needs to be good. If you...
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    Laser Safety Guide for Newcomers - How to safely lase!

    Nice article Give a laser as much respect as you give a hand gun. Remember also that most of the cheaper plastic goggles that hobbyists have can be easily degraded after a direct hit and should be discarded if they have been hit. They are cheap enough so it's not worth taking a chance.
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    Class 4 Laser Safety

    I think I can understand what you mean and I assume English isn't your first language, but you are mistaken. At >900mW it matters not what the wavelength is because any laser light produced from a modern diode will blind you faster than you can blink. Secondly, safety glasses will not protect...
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    Just how freakin stupid can some people be

    LaserSaber: A real 'Star Wars' lightsaber at last? | Crave - CNET This is WRONG on so many levels, I don't know where to start. Hey kiddies, buy a real light saber and blind your friends and pets :yabbmad: Wicked Lasers have built a polycarbonate addon to their laser which turns it into a...
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    500 Trillion Watt Laser... no joke

    We normally measure laser light by it's wavelength but I wonder whether it can even generate a full wavelength at that speed? Anyone got a calculator :)
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    FS 1.4W waterproof Cobalt 2000 + safety goggles

    Re: FS AwesomeLasers Cobalt 2000 + safety goggles The LaserBee is "SOLD" pending middleman approval Offers being accepted on the Cobalt 2000 + 2 pair of goggles
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    Hello, I’m From the FDA and I Am Here to Confiscate Your Laser

    Ha ha Yes, you are probably right ;)
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    Hello, I’m From the FDA and I Am Here to Confiscate Your Laser

    I'm not 100% sure that it's the idiots 'fault'... let me explain... You go to school and your teacher uses a pointer on the whiteboard. That's cool. You go to a friends house and they are playing with their cat/dog with a laser pointer - you have great fun for an hour winding the animal up...
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    A Peek into Ryan's Builds: Heatsinking a Hot Linear Driver

    Heat is drawn from hot to cold - so this would depend upon how much heat is being generated by the 'overdriven' diode - I suspect they get pretty freakin hot!!
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    Hello, I’m From the FDA and I Am Here to Confiscate Your Laser

    Of course it does and will. Unless you can come up with a genuine argument for why they should not be banned, eventually they will be. Unlike gun ownership, there is no huge, powerful lobby (NRA) fighting to preserve the right to own a 2W laser. There is no counter-argument for why we should be...
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    A Peek into Ryan's Builds: Heatsinking a Hot Linear Driver

    Yes - how about inverse 3 times LOL The biggest problem is that for most of us, knowing the alloy for what we can purchase 'over the counter' is very hard. For example we have no idea what alloy is used for the host body. And yes, as you say, it can make a huge difference to the effectiveness...
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    A Peek into Ryan's Builds: Heatsinking a Hot Linear Driver

    Every material has a Thermal Transfer Coefficient that determines how quickly heat moves through it - copper (398) is almost twice as good aluminum (237) for this. The molar heat capacity of copper and aluminum is the same but copper has 3 times the specific heat capacity of aluminum which...
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    A Peek into Ryan's Builds: Heatsinking a Hot Linear Driver

    The air and compound heat transfer abilities are waay less effective (approx 200 times) than copper - you would be far better off tinning the heatsink with solder filling the voids and then grinding the surface flat down to the height of the copper. Will increase the heat transfer coefficient by...
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    A Peek into Ryan's Builds: Heatsinking a Hot Linear Driver

    Couple of questions to help educate me 1. Why are you using a linear driver which appear to be quite inefficient and thus generate a lot of heat? Wouldn't a buck driver (or 2 for higher currrent) be much more efficient and thus generate less heat? 2. Why does the copper heatsink have a...
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    BlitzBuck V1, Now For Sale at CajunLasers

    That's awesome! Well done and it's a really sensible improvement Best of luck :beer:
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    Won an auction, price was wrong?

    Go pay for it - he may have a second fully working one and you get the buggered one. So what? Worst case is he refunds you $26. Just go for it - what have you got to lose?
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    Hello, I’m From the FDA and I Am Here to Confiscate Your Laser

    1. The general rule is that if something can potentially inflict harm on another then it should be regulated. 2. The second rule is that if it can generate revenue then regulation is a really good thing </sarcasm> Guns, Missiles, C4 plastic, Cars, Motorcycles, Airplanes etc are all regulated...




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