Hello!
I am a musician/ constant tinkerer wanting to put together my first laser light show. I plan to build a Lumia, difractor, and a motiondizer ( out of MAKE issue 20) I understand the basic principals of electricty, and the dangers of playing with lasers and all that jazz. My question is about laser power out put. I want to get the most bang for my buck. I plan on using cheap pointers off the internet, green, red and violet. I plan on having my "shows" if you can call them that at house parties and possibly small clubs to go along with the music, so I need the lasers to cut through fog from a fog machine, yet not be so powerful that they will bounce out of a window or something shiny and blind some one. my other concern is keeping the lasers from burning up, I want to be able to keep them going for a couple of hours. The 5mW lasers are cheap, but are they powerful enough to do what I want them too? since they are low power do I have to worry about cooling them? how about the 10mW lasers? they would probly look better for what I want, but how do I keep them from burning up?
Thanks
Jitup
I am a musician/ constant tinkerer wanting to put together my first laser light show. I plan to build a Lumia, difractor, and a motiondizer ( out of MAKE issue 20) I understand the basic principals of electricty, and the dangers of playing with lasers and all that jazz. My question is about laser power out put. I want to get the most bang for my buck. I plan on using cheap pointers off the internet, green, red and violet. I plan on having my "shows" if you can call them that at house parties and possibly small clubs to go along with the music, so I need the lasers to cut through fog from a fog machine, yet not be so powerful that they will bounce out of a window or something shiny and blind some one. my other concern is keeping the lasers from burning up, I want to be able to keep them going for a couple of hours. The 5mW lasers are cheap, but are they powerful enough to do what I want them too? since they are low power do I have to worry about cooling them? how about the 10mW lasers? they would probly look better for what I want, but how do I keep them from burning up?
Thanks
Jitup