Laser needed for Attracting Lightning Bolts!

[HIMNL9]

You can use a high power UV laser for create a "ionized path" for this, but, the main problem is another.

I mean ..... you KNOW what means "playing with lightnings", right ? .....

The normal breakdown voltage in the common dry air is around 3000V/mm (lab conditions), but in a stormy environment, with all the water in the air, can fall til 1000V/mm, that gives you 1.000.000V (one million Volt) per meter, and, usually, a lightning can be from 400 to 14.000 meters (considering normal a 2 to 4 Km lenght) ..... this gives you a medium value that can go from 2.000.000.000 to 4.000.000.000V (yes, BILLIONS), with currents that, depending from the nature of the lightning (singleshot, multiple shots, quick sequence) can go from 10.000A to 200.000A .....

Guess that, for play with them, some basical insulation precautions are usually not enough .....

 

[slammer99uk]

It might be best to tell him how to do it, others may try it - It just might thin the herd :fightin:

Jerry

 

[nikokapo]

It can't be done without huge amounts of money.

If you say money is no problem, then I don't really know how somebody who has more than $10M is asking where to put that money to people he doesn't know in a project he doesn't understand.

Also, HIMNL9 has pretty much summed it up perfectly

 

[CrazyMonkey]

TEA Nitrogen gas laser. Easy to build, you do not even need mirrors. (would help though, lol)

The Professor's Homebuilt Lasers Site - TEA Nitrogen Laser
TEA laser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Is in the UV range, and can have MW pulses.
Easiest laser of all to build from scratch, or so I hear.

 

[Fonduman]

I would try if I didnt want to die. might be a good tip to not be holding the laser while you do it.

im slightly dissapointed, from main forum page "laser needed for attracting..."
and here I thought it might be girls

 

[psi seeker 34]

maybe just buy 100,000,000,000 Arctics

Actually from what I've read on the interwebs it is possible to induce lightning
strikes using a co2 laser. Given that an Arctic blue laser is 1W and a co2 laser
ranges from 10-200W you may only need to buy 200 Arctic lasers to achieve the same effect assuming that you could focus them into one beam.

To answer the starting post: It is not possible to build a hand held device in
order to do this. Even if you could it would quickly become too hot to hold and if it didn't would you really want to be struck by lightning on purpose?

If money is truly no object the most practical choice is to build or buy a 200W co2 laser and work up from there by actively Q switching it which according to Wikipedia can create short pulses of infra-red light with peak powers in the giga watts range. (safety goggles are NOT an option at the power any co2 laser has)

 

[CrazyMonkey]

I thought UV ionized the air, not IR?

Actually from what I've read on the interwebs it is possible to induce lightning
strikes using a co2 laser. Given that an Arctic blue laser is 1W and a co2 laser
ranges from 10-200W you may only need to buy 200 Arctic lasers to achieve the same effect assuming that you could focus them into one beam.

To answer the starting post: It is not possible to build a hand held device in
order to do this. Even if you could it would quickly become too hot to hold and if it didn't would you really want to be struck by lightning on purpose?

If money is truly no object the most practical choice is to build or buy a 200W co2 laser and work up from there by actively Q switching it which according to Wikipedia can create short pulses of infra-red light with peak powers in the giga watts range. (safety goggles are NOT an option at the power any co2 laser has)

 

[charliebruce]

Model aeroplane with a 1km copper cable trailing from it - simple, cheap and very effective indeed.

 

[Pontiacg5]

(safety goggles are NOT an option at the power any co2 laser has)

Yeah, that is pretty much wrong. Most anything but ZnSe works for saftey glasses for CO2.

 

[psi seeker 34]

dirrected @ crazymonkey

If you heat air hot enough it will become plasma and thus a conductor.
From what I've read co2 lasers instantly superheat the air where the beam is.
If you heat air it expands thus creating a vacuum which lowers the air's resistance. In fact even a normal candle flame conducts HV electricity better than normal air. (I've tried it :eg: ) This is the same reason that fluorescent light bulbs (and gas lasers) are under a vacuum. The collapse of the vacuum is what causes thunder after lightning strikes.

You may be correct in that only UV lasers ionize the air however ionization does not seem to be a requirement in order to attract lightning.

 

[CrazyMonkey]

Hmm.. good luck with making a laser big enough to turn air into plasma, all the way up into the sky.. That would take an enormous amount of energy, not to mention the lensing caused my the heat of the plasma. Then again, maybe the lensing would make it more stable... Who knows.

You try it first

hmm.. data:

High-power UV source for filamentation in air
Laser-triggered lightning discharge

 

[HIMNL9]

Model aeroplane with a 1km copper cable trailing from it - simple, cheap and very effective indeed.

Uhm ..... i can be wrong, my school courses ended some days ago (30 years, LOL), but, as far as i remember, you can have some little problems .....

I mean, copper have a high weight and a low mechanical resistance ..... supposing that you can use 1mm copper wire (you can't, anyway, cause it cannot hold its own weight), 1Km of cable must weight something like 8 Tons ..... also, where you find a model airplane able to lift all this weight ?

 

[charliebruce]

Uhm ..... i can be wrong, my school courses ended some days ago (30 years, LOL), but, as far as i remember, you can have some little problems .....

I mean, copper have a high weight and a low mechanical resistance ..... supposing that you can use 1mm copper wire (you can't, anyway, cause it cannot hold its own weight), 1Km of cable must weight something like 8 Tons ..... also, where you find a model airplane able to lift all this weight ?

Fine, a hot air balloon then? It would be like the kites with keys experiment by Franklin.

I'm presuming this is some way of directing lightning or harnessing it - a hot air balloon, with a cable attached, with a reel of copper wire on the ground would be enough to create an initial channel, afterwards the temperature and current should sustain the arc even if the copper wire is vaporised- it would be a simple but effective way of making lightning strike a point.

I'm curious to the OP's plans for this..

 

[StardustSprinkles]

You might try contacting that place in Cali. that is researching the ability to recreate a mini-sun here on earth... I'm sure their lasers would work lol.

 

[Things]

UV isn't required to ionize air, it just helps, as the UV itself causes ionization. Although, the WL Arctic isn't even close to UV ..

Not to mention combining 200 arctics and getting a beam a few mm wide would be impossible ..

There is no other way to do this than using a nice big pulsed laser.

You need to have a serious think about where you are going to be, yourself, and the laser. you can shoot the laser across the ground, then aim it up with a mirror, but the nature if lightning is that it'll strike anywhere. So it might follow your ionization channel 1/2 way down, then break off and come for you instead ...

 

[psi seeker 34]

I personally would be within a Faraday cage while the laser was no less than 200 feet away from a well grounded mirror that reflects the beam into the sky. I might also put a lightning rod near the mirror in order to keep lightning from striking and melting the mirror itself.