Laser power required to mark/ burn paper in 20ms?

[Danjr1]

Hi all
I'm looking for some advice if that's ok? I've been making and improving a laser-based tin can alley garden shooting game for a few years now but I've always struggled making the target system reliable. Therefore my mind has started to drift towards whether a laser system which can slightly mark/ burn a white paper target in 20 milliseconds is possible? The reason behind the 20 millisecond firing period is that it matches the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne's firing period for their competition laser guns (bit pointless really but i think its kinda cool!). Therefore my question is whether anyone can recommend a suitable and reasonably priced laser module that's capable of this? Not fussed about the colour!
Cheers
Dan

 

[Deleted member 8178]

What you ask for is very high power and dangerous, and 20ms is oddly specific.
A violet laser on glow in the dark material is instant and relatively low power.

 

[Danjr1]

Appreciate that. Part of me was thinking its a tiny time period to transmit a certain amount of energy, and subsequently a module that could do this may be too expensive but I wanted to ask the question.

So would a purple/ violet laser permanently mark a glow in the dark material?

 

[Deleted member 8178]

It will fade. How long it lasts depend on how powerful and well focused the spot is, as and the quality of the GITD material. It will not work in direct sunlight.

 

[bulukaki]

If the target area is small it may be feasible to use thermal paper since it will turn black at temperatures lower than the temperature needed to char the paper.

 

[Danjr1]

ah cool! till roll paper then! what kind of laser power could do that?

 

[Encap]

Sounds like your daydream is going to have to reamain a daydream.
Your imagined game system would be an expensive accident looking for a place to happen at best.

There is no viable, safe, low cost, or reliable way to make you daydream game work charring targets or marking thermal paper with lasers or it would have been done already 1000 times over. Nobody uses lasers that way for real reasons in the real world.
The Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne's competition laser guns use 2.5mW to 3.2mW lasers and electronic targets for real reasons.

You are going to have to do all the testing and research yourself to even see if a conjectured thermal paper target will work at all, at whatever distance with whatever output laser you want to consider.

As mentioned in post #2 : "What you ask for is very high power and dangerous" add to that reckless and would never comply with laser Laws, rules, and regulations.

FYI in case you do not know. A laser beam has no temperature - there is no inherent "temperature" to a laser beam. Heat is produced by the random motion of matter particles (atomic or molecular particles). A laser beam itself is not made of matter but of photons, which have no mass, thus a laser beam can have no temperature. "Heat" is caused by a laser beams energy being absorbed by a materials surface and turning light energy into heat energy