Just question for inspiration.

[Tamm]

Hello, im back Im just wondering why you have decided to start with that unusual hobby? Like someone loves cars, you love lasers... Its also very expensive hoppy i have to say. With car you can drive around and its your every day mate but laser is different, you dont need it as much as car(you definitely need but i mean most of people). Last time i was curious about lasers about year ago and thought building one but still then i thought its pretty pointless(expensive) and left it there. I posted this thread just for curiosity and looking some inspiration maybe. Actually i dont know myself too :thanks:

I forgot to ask one simple question. What would you recommend for a beginner? (and i dont mean all those guides etc. i have read them many times, i mean more like first project or something interesting what would put someone love lasers )

 

[10fenny]

Im a full time mechanic so I love cars too. Well some days. I def get sick of working on them. So working on lasers is like the same but different. I love the colors and patterns be able to be created with various filters. I guess that's why I have gotten into projection recently. Now That's a money pit!!!
Lasers let me relax after a long day of getting dirty!!

 

[Razako]

It's like asking why people like fine art. After all, it's just an expensive object that you leave sitting somewhere and occasionally admire. Why buy a sports car if most of your driving is just gonna be done in the city?

Personally I think lasers are fun to mess around with, and they can really impress people if you have exotic colors. Lasers are sort of like technological artwork. Some of the more exotic colors are incredibly difficult to produce. They have practical applications in wood burning/etching, star pointing and playing with pets depending on the power. I also admire the scientific aspect of them, and I've always collected interesting tech stuff. In a sense lasers can be quite addictive because you'll want to acquire all of the common wavelengths for your collection.

Outside of lasers I've been into other hobbies such as Hi-Fi Audio, guns, cars and high voltage electronics.

 

[Isaac Clarke]

here's is why i like i like laser....i have in my hand a little device that can travel faster than the Lamborghini, it can also shoot out projectiles that travel faster and further than any fire arm...

 

[Lux Nitida]

Well, I got interested in lasers when I was introduced to them in high school. (I'm now 35.) My shop teacher called me in to his office one day because he new I was a science nerd and he wanted to show me something. He had a small HeNe laser that he had salvaged from somewhere. I had never seen a laser before in real life and this was right before the 670nm laser pointers were coming in to being cool. He turned the lights off and there was this beautiful bright red dot on the wall, I was hooked. From there he started explaining to me about different types of lasers and then he showed me his laser pointer he bought. Nothing special just a 670nm red diode laser but it was so compact and portable and I just had to have one. Then my one science teacher purchased a new green laser pointer and it was $500 and a new type of laser pointer, one of the first DPSS laser pointers. So we would mess around with that and my interest just grew and grew. Over the years I just started to put together a small collection and now I just try and learn as much as I can and acquire different wavelengths to add to my collection. I now am really getting into laser photography and that is becoming something I really enjoy doing in this hobby. It just is so fascinating to me to have such concentrated beams of light all in the palm of your hand. I love enjoying the beams in the dark and fog in my basement where I have a makeshift beam range for my photography set up. I also enjoy knife and sword collecting, target shooting and music but lasers are just like any other odd or exotic hobby, you either get it or you don't. :beer:

 

[Chicxulub]

For me, it was practically lifelong. I knew that lasers existed since the late 80s, and saw my first one sometime in that decade, though I'll admit that I don't remember when or where, just that it was red.

I grew up watching Star Trek: TNG, and for me, lasers were the real-life embodiment of phasers. When I discovered laser pointers in the winter of 1993, I saved up my allowance and bought my first one in the spring of 1994. I was 11 and it was $49.99. The laser was a surprisingly well built three button cell keychain with a line and circle tip.

Things exploded quickly for me from that point, and I spent nearly every penny that I made on lasers. I got my first green in 1998, a super early run CNI GLP with a double digit serial number (what I wouldn't give to have it back!!!). I had no way to know it at the time, but I know suspect that laser did 20-30mW.

I eventually went on to get my first blue laser (a CNI GLP-473) in 2006, and my first "yellow" (CNI GLP-594) in 2008.

I've had lots of lasers, but my experience was back in the day and age when the entire laser community was a pack of noobs, and hobbyist level power meters didn't exist. I got out of the hobby back in 2010 and have only recently found my way back as well. I'm absolutely blown away at the status of the hobby. I remember back when a 30mW green and a 200mW red were awe-inspiring pieces of hardware!

 

[Rivem]

I think I like lasers more as a subset of other hobbies and interests. I'd say my interest in electronics and science really sparked my interest in owning them. Also, I love astronomy, and I'm always looking for a better star pointer. Other than that, I don't know I can recall when I learned about lasers or first saw one, but it would have been when I was around three years old. Probably the coolest early laser memory I have is of a guide star being fired from an observatory. Really got interested watching a laser show at Stone Mountain in Georgia when I was six.

 

[H2Oxide]

I personally joined the hobby because I hope to turn it into a career.

Lasers are so simple in theory, but very complex in practice. It's great because you not only have to calculate out how each component will work, but then you get to apply it and actually make it work.

 

[RedCowboy]

This is not an auto forum?
Gee whiz, boy have I ever been going about this the hard way.

 

[Pi R Squared]

Star Trek: TNG :crackup: You are almost too young to own a laser :crackup: Unlike Chicxulub, I grew up watching Star Trek: TOS and other old SciFi, it was in 1970 that I first learned that lasers were real and there was a company in the U.S. that made and sold them, only gas lasers back then. When I found out how much they cost I thought I could never buy one, so I imagined that one day I may be able to build one myself. By now I would have expected us to have Star Trek type of phasers, am still waiting to see those, probably a good thing we don't have them. It wasn't until 1990 or so or whenever it was that I first learned of solid state laser diodes when the first red pointers started showing up, I also got my amateur radio license about that time and learned that some ham radio operators were experimenting with laser diodes for communication. I was not impressed though with these low power diodes. I bought my first red pointer less than 10 years ago. Later when I started making my own colloidal silver solution and got a 635nm red that is 4.9-5mW that is one of several methods of testing your silver solution, it provides a visual indication of particulate silver, you start with distilled water and you shine a laser through it and no beam is visible but as you make your silver solution the beam slowly becomes visible. Anyway I never thought I would have a real use for a laser and so that got me interested again and I found out how far the technology has advanced and I soon decided to build my first laser, having years of electronics experience and having studied it in college made it easy for me to figure everything out and this was my first build: http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/assembled-m140-c6-pic-heavy-83543.html Once I had a powerful laser with an easily visible beam then I was hooked and had to build more.

Alan