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Help - My First Build - Laser Cigarette Lighter

M

marmite666

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Mar 7, 2021
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Hi guys,
I'm new to this forum and hobby in general but I have a background in mechanical engineering and want to get more involved with electronics and lasers. As a nicotine addict and a generally irresponsible person I thought it would be fun to build a cigarette lighter that uses lasers.
My general plan is to find or build a laser capable of lighting a cigarette while being small enough to fit in a trouser pocket and being safe to use without eye protection. I'm hoping to achieve this by fitting the laser with a light absorbent endcap to stop the beam after a couple centimetres.
Can you guys point me in the right direction?
What would be the best laser or laser components for the job and what would I need?
I live in the UK and have a budget of around £65. I'm a complete beginner so any advice would be greatly appreciated :D
 





If you're going to be terminating the beam after a few cm you might as well use an arc lighter, but any powerful blue diode with a beam stop made of matte black metal should do what you want
 
There are some serious problems here. In order to get it pocket sized, it would be very hard to make it safe to use. The immediate beam is but one hazard. Another would be scattered light from anything inserted into it. A third issue would be smoke ruining lenses in any remotely safe design (which would also completely have to hide the laser by design). As is usually said when people get interested in this route, just use a regular lighter, coil lighter, or arc lighter. It is not worth the risk to your vision, or someone else's. You even describe yourself as "a generally irresponsible person" which to most is read as "reckless and irresponsible".

There are many neat things to do with lasers, this really shouldn't be one of them.
 
Besides creating a potentially hazardous device that could cause blindness, if you did enclose all but a pathway to insert the cigarette you would contaminate your lens much too easily, a simple coil of nickle chromium wire would work much better for a battery powered lighter or one of the arc type.

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Using a laser anything, especially for someone with no knowledge of lasers or eye hazards posed by same without laser hazard eye protection is a bad idea.
A high power blue laser3 inches from your eyes to light a cigarette is an accident looking for a place to happen, It is not without good reasons that there are no laser cigarette lighters made or offered anywhere in the world.

In USA lasers with outputs of 5mW or less are considered safe for unintentional eye exposure, because a person will normally turn away or blink to avoid the bright light blink however they can cause eye damage however there is a possibility of retinal damage if the direct or reflected beam enters your eye longer than about ¼ second. see: https://www.lasersafetyfacts.com/3R/ info on other classes of laser and eye hazards related to same are on that site as well.

You can see an extensive discussion of a laser lighter back in 2009 here: https://laserpointerforums.com/threads/laser-cigarette-lighter.27987/

See Laser Hazard Chart here: https://www.lasersafetyfacts.com/resources/FAA---visible-laser-hazard-calcs-for-LSF-v02.png

If you are going to get involved in lasers proper eye protection in a must---you can getlow cost good laser glasses/goggles here: https://www.survivallaser.com/Safety_Goggles/cat556089_826120.aspx

Read about all aspects of laser safety and related on excellent web site here: https://www.laserpointersafety.com/
 
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Check that out. It's basically a portable car lighter. I might just pick one up for the heck of it.
 
DDB712EA-4770-453F-A7C7-C1125B163843.jpegStreamlight pro tac 90 +nubmo8 blue laser diode + chunk of brass for heat sink .I use mine to light cigarettes and pipes easily.I drill out one eye in the brass skull and imbed the laser diode which gives me a nice little hole to put the end of my cigarette in .I do carry a lease wipe to clean it after use.I would not hand it to someone else to light anything though.
 

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Thanks for all the replies dudes,
I understand the risks and I will be picking up some suitable eye protection for when I'm building and testing my laser, I'm not totally incompetent, you don't have to worry about me. If I get it to work it wouldn't be something I'd just hand to anyone anyway, I'm not a complete maniac despite appearances 😅 and I will be taking precautions.
I'm not too worried about damaging the lens as it's my understanding that the lens shouldn't be coming into direct contact with smoke, at least not very often. And a decent glass lens capable of working with a 1W laser should be able to shake off a little bit of ash without too much trouble, right?

405nanoMatt said:
View attachment 71939Streamlight pro tac 90 +nubmo8 blue laser diode + chunk of brass for heat sink .I use mine to light cigarettes and pipes easily.I drill out one eye in the brass skull and imbed the laser diode which gives me a nice little hole to put the end of my cigarette in .I do carry a lease wipe to clean it after use.I would not hand it to someone else to light anything though.
Click to expand...
Awesome design btw dude, love the skull effect. Definitely going to be looking out for a solid "tactical" flashlight for the host.
 
As usual you guys parrot laser safety/it cannot be done.

NO, you can't do it, perhaps. Let people have fun.
 
Build Update:
Laser diode, module, lens and driver ordered from ebay. Expecting a ~1.6W 450nm laser when assembled which I'm guessing should be more than enough to light a ciggy in a couple seconds.
Going to wait for the parts to arrive then I'll be on the hunt for a host and a heatsink, plus whatever parts I'm gonna need for the beam blocker. Already £62 into my budget but I don't expect the whole project to cost more than £75 when finished.
 
FireMyLaser said:
As usual you guys parrot laser safety/it cannot be done.

NO, you can't do it, perhaps. Let people have fun.
Click to expand...
Are you being serious? Laser safety is absolutely paramount. It's not a matter of not being able to do it it's a matter of if it should be done.
 
Oh so now you're attacking me by saying I can't build a simple little laser? You're ignoring the fact that it's a bad idea to use a laser to start lighting peoples cigarettes and decided to attack me personally by saying I can't build it. Real nice, bruh
 
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