How did you get hooked on lasers?

[green lasers rock]

First I will share my story. 6 months or so ago, my school went on an overnight trip to the redwood forest. The trip preceded as normal until the day we went on a night hike. There, one of the staff brought out a cheap eBay green pen of course, the rest of my class, not knowing anything about lasers(or not caring) thought this laser was amazing, but I recognized the host as a cheepie Before this event, I had never owned a green laser, just those cheap dollar store red ones:crry: Of course, I briefed the staff on the cheep nature of the laser. They had some opinion the it was a rare, high powered device. Once i got home, i first got a cheap red laser, and then progressed into eBay greenies. Ever since i have been hooked. What got you hooked?:thanks:

 

[SyKo]

Always fascinated by the cheapy red pointers that use button cells when i was a kid, as i got more interested in electronics and learnt from my teacher at the time (who was a former electrical engineer of sorts) that DVD/RW drives have mighty fun diodes in them, i was too young at the time to purchase the right parts and get anything other than a IR diode from a CD driver but eventually i got a Laser working with LM317 driver and a DVD/RW diode after 2 years of a furious obsession with electronics and the disasembly of almost everything electrical: http://laserpointerforums.com/f50/my-first-140-210-ma-hi-lo-red-laser-16x-dvd-86507.html

From there i bought lasers, killed many a diode, bought more lasers, bought more lasers, noticed i had no money in my paypal account, bought more lasers and now i am making up for all the buying and started selling them

Tis a bit of my story.

 

[Isaac Clarke]

i got hook on laser after watching Styropyro's video. then i remember building my first blue laser with parts from DTR on amazon/ebay and a custom host from Ehgemus. then i start digging into random machine that have laser sign on it. i killed all the harvested diodes due to not knowing how to drive the laser. then DTR refer me to LPF, and here i am staying and help every member who need help i come across. Now i'm still digging into machines.

 

[SyKo]

i got hook on laser after watching Styropyro's video. then i remember building my first blue laser with parts from DTR on amazon/ebay and a custom host from Ehgemus. then i start digging into random machine that have laser sign on it. i killed all the harvested diodes due to not knowing how to drive the laser. then DTR refer me to LPF, and here i am staying and help every member who need help i come across. Now i'm still digging into machines.

I wish i kept every diode i ever took out of a machine, oh the poor CD players that died needlessly
Atleast 20 extracted diodes were killed by me :gun:

 

[Isaac Clarke]

i know that pain when you realize you kill a diode.

 

[Alaskan]

I've killed several diodes, not fun. I saw a greenie for the first time while working in Afghanistan, one of my coworkers bought a small 50mw 532nm pointer for a couple hundred dollars at the time. Eventually, I found a used Laserglow 100mw Aries on ebay, that was my first laser pointer, although 30 years ago I had a small 5mw red gas laser I thought was cool, it was so beautiful to make a beam with it while there was fog or snowing.... I had no idea the future would bring such high power laser pointers which would be so affordable.

 

[GSS]

I started with a the red button cell laser maby 20 years ago. It was around $25 then. Even then it was used at times to annoy and scare people by simply putting a dot on someones chest to make it seem there was a high power rifle focused on them. "there will be jerks to the end of time" Sometime after I got a toy Star Trek phaser that people were modding with lasers I started getting pop ups to the green 532,s that led me to this forum. That green color just amazed me, I dont know if its because its the most visible to the human eye and even seeing the warning sticker with its green colored label got me just as excited when I opened up the package of my first cheap ebay pens. Could of been that I reached and got the new and exciting world of these. Now power and all new colors are taking over but it will always be the beam

 

[the15thwiseone]

I always found the different color of wavelengths interesting. Not to say i found a rainbow interesting, but that i was actually able to on my engineering design project determine that each wavelength of LED i had same distance, same brightness had a different value on my light capture test. I found that very interesting. and so i find lasers interesting for the same thing.

 

[Gadget]

It was a cold October night a few years ago...in a forest in south Texas (Texas Ren Fest, to be exact). We were sitting in camp shortly after sundown, gettin' bent. Then, just down the way from us, the night exploded in an intense pillar of coherent blue light that streaked toward the heavens! I was blown away! I HAD to know where this heavenbound light came from, so...on walkabout I went.

As I was searching for the source of the beautiful light,I saw it again, streaking toward the heavens which I thought must surely be its home...this time I could see exactly where it came from. I approached the camp and greeted the occupants. They were warm and friendly, as I thought anyone weilding that kind of beauty must be. I was giddy like a little school girl...and the occupants of the camp could surely sense it!

I approached the wielder of this magical light and proceeded to bombard him with questions. If my giddiness wasn't obvious on my approach to the camp, it certainly became so at this point! I had to know where I could obtain one of these lights of the gods for my very own, and he was more than forthcoming, thankfully! (I didn't want to have to force the information out of him at swordpoint, but I very well would have).

Well...the rest, as they say, is history. That was in October...and by Christmas I too was a wielder of the heavenly blue light!

-G

 

[Sigurthr]

First exposure was the old James Bond movies, but..
Late 80s or early 90s I saw my first HeNe, and shortly after were tales of the Ruby laser *my last unicorn btw, still don't have one, probably never will*. I had no hope of getting my hands on a HeNe back then due to the price. I think it was '93 or so when I got my first red laser diode. It was 100uW and cost almost $200. Built an APC driver for it and got it running for all of a week or two before static killed it.

 

[Jeffrey T]

This is a great question to ask here, and I'm loving reading everyone's responses!

I think I was born with a love for lights (honestly).

I've always loved colored lights. Always. My brother has too. When we were young kids, we'd string colored Christmas lights on the insides of our bunk beds, etc. We'd also play with flashlights a lot, and my brother even did his own little "light shows" in the back yard for my parents lol.

As a teenager, I took an interest in theatrical lighting, but (unfortunately) never pursued learning anything about it, etc. Fortunately, I'm now involved in my kids' very high-end, professional-level High School theater program (as a board member) and get to hang around their awesome lighting guy a lot LOL. I also remember as a teen, attending a local outdoor laser light show that completely blew me away. I need to do some digging and find out who did that show....

As an adult, I got into night photography as a hobby....because of the lights. I loved going out on the town on my own at night and taking photos of anything that was lit up. I still do a little of this. I also got into flashlights quite a bit, via stumbling up the Candle Power Forums a number of years back. I bought my dad his first nice flashlight a few years ago and got him into reading the CPF forum too.

Although did own a very small, red laser pointer years ago for presentation use, my brother bought me a cheap little greenie for Christmas a couple of months back. Taking it outside at night and seeing the beautiful beam and throw distance completely blew me away, and I new I needed more!

I found this place, looked at everyone's photos, and fell in love.
I did some homework here, and bought myself an upgrade 532nm (50mW), and a 1W 445, which I'm completely crazy about (I'm partial to blue stuff)!

Looking forward to more colors and more power in the days ahead!

Sorry about the long back story - thanks for reading!
-jeff

 

[Laser Chick]

2 engineers and myself went to a vendor to troubleshoot some issues they were having and we saw a room that needed a badge to get in. We asked what was going on in there when we saw all the warning signs. We were handed laser safety goggles, we went in, we heard a snap/click and a moment later the tag end of a 2x6 fell onto the work surface. Our eyebrows shot up, we grinned at each other .... the rest is history

 

[green lasers rock]

I love reading all these stories Thank you for sharing yours! It is very interesting to hear how you were introduced to lasers!

 

[marcuspeh]

I started with a the red button cell laser since i was 6. Even then it was used at times to annoy and scare people by simply putting a dot on someones chest or near them to make it seem there was a high power rifle or something focused on them. 2 years ago, i chanced upon styropyro's video on YouTube that's when i did some googling and here i am.

 

[Gabe]

I too was always fascinated by light, when my dad brought home a laser pointer from a business presentation, I was captivated. At the same time I did some searching, and like others here came across Styro's vids. I was an obsessive little child, so you know I binge watched the shít out of his videos . Later my parents bought me a 5mW 660 presentation pointer, and "the rest is history". Still have it.

 

[Chicxulub]

I was always a fan of Star Trek and Star Wars and the like growing up, so when I saw my first laser pointers for sale in a magazing called The Edge Company back in 1994, I knew that I had to have one. Granted, their cheapest ones were those little three button cell keychain pointers for $49.99, but I managed to save up for a month or so to buy one. That was the beginning of the end for me, I was hooked.

In the spring of 1998, I got my first green- a double digit serial number CNI GLP for $499 from Deharpport Trading Company. It probably did 30mW, but I had no way to know how truly special it was back then.