Lightsaber Design?

[anselm]

 

[Lumin]

Your method is esentially creating tiny plasma balls in air along the predefined route. And yes, there are many balls and not straight line because, in all fairness, laser needed to do an electronic breakdown of air is most certanly not available in "CW" edition. Not now and not in 20 years from now.

Also, it would probably sound more like Tesla coil than a Lightsaber.

ALSO, we do have scientists working on science. Inventions are not made accidentaly by people who had spare time and spare pencils/papers (time and drawing software today).
There's unimaginable amount of stuff you need to cover before even grasping an idea how would such a weapon even function.

And even if you DO make it, without need of 20 nuclear powerplants to power it , but make an actual working lightsaber, let's cover one last thing here:

In the movie, Jedis are able to use such weapons because of supernatural precognition abilities thanks to the Force.
Any other REAL human on the other hand, would end up with smoking crotch and mouth full of curses at the guy who invented the damned thing.

Deflecting lasers? They don't exist. Instead, you get hit by bullets. I don't see that getting reflected.

Saber fight? Oh I'll just bring my trusty Russian TT-33 7.62mm Armor piercing pistol, thank you very much.
Or hell, a finely made laser. Any attacker with lightsaber without Force abilities will end up with a lot of crushed hopes of having children, a BLIND attacker with such a "weapon" is a one way-amusing lightshow of pain.

Got that covered.

Any further questions?

Yep, little balls is how it would work, but because they're relatively finely spaced and the dpss required would be running => 10khZ (let's say), it'd LOOK like a line... much the same way that television conveys the impression of motion. And it'd still cut things. What's the difference?

I always thought the tesla coil sound mostly comes from discharges, which once discharged take some time to accumulate to a critical degree again, which is what causes that sawtooth-like sound characteristic of such devices... the dpss frequency should be waaaaay above this range, no?

So then it's a question of power...
Electrochemical reactions could be used instead of Traditional batteries, one main reaction for generating the stupid amount of power required and a secondary endothermic reaction to keep the device itself from burning up.
I'm not suggesting this as immediately practical, but if people want to figure out how it can be done, why not?

As far as laser deflection etc being less than possible, I totally agree... but the lights looked way cooler than people waving model guns at each other with sound effects & muzzle flashes pasted in, no? : )


Incidentally, I'm a professional inventor (meaning I make my living charging people for design consultation and solutions). I usually design things that are at least mostly within my realm of speciality, yes, but I started without a realm of specality and as a hobbyist. Without the encouragement of many people I don't think I'd be doing what I am today. If someone takes the time to learn the field they're interested in, I believe most people can make contributions to said field with enough work. And most ideas start simple enough to write on paper.

 

[Lumin]

Anyway, can you control the length of a normal laser? I don't think so

Not really, but you can control the focal point so you can control the effective length of your laser as a cutting tool....

 

[Wolfman29]

Yeah, but with such high power as 1.7W, it can still severely burn far away from the focal point.

 

[Eudaimonium]

Yep, little balls is how it would work, but because they're relatively finely spaced and the dpss required would be running => 10khZ (let's say), it'd LOOK like a line... much the same way that television conveys the impression of motion. And it'd still cut things. What's the difference?

I always thought the tesla coil sound mostly comes from discharges, which once discharged take some time to accumulate to a critical degree again, which is what causes that sawtooth-like sound characteristic of such devices... the dpss frequency should be waaaaay above this range, no?

So then it's a question of power...
Electrochemical reactions could be used instead of Traditional batteries, one main reaction for generating the stupid amount of power required and a secondary endothermic reaction to keep the device itself from burning up.
I'm not suggesting this as immediately practical, but if people want to figure out how it can be done, why not?

As far as laser deflection etc being less than possible, I totally agree... but the lights looked way cooler than people waving model guns at each other with sound effects & muzzle flashes pasted in, no? : )


Incidentally, I'm a professional inventor (meaning I make my living charging people for design consultation and solutions). I usually design things that are at least mostly within my realm of speciality, yes, but I started without a realm of specality and as a hobbyist. Without the encouragement of many people I don't think I'd be doing what I am today. If someone takes the time to learn the field they're interested in, I believe most people can make contributions to said field with enough work. And most ideas start simple enough to write on paper.

Yeah I'd really like to get into lenghty technical discussion about all that, but seriously what good would that do? Let's just avoid the risks of having an irational fight and say it this way:

It's damn right possible. Problem is just figuring it out. I am not going to be the one to figure it out.

That's that

 

[Lumin]

It's damn right possible. Problem is just figuring it out.

lol I'll totally agree there : )



@Wolf: depends on how focussed the beam is, if you put a spreading lens in early on it'd have a very tight focal point
(X without vs >< with)
which means it'd be more spread at the same distance from the focal point

Either way, I'm REALLY not suggesting this as a practical experiment... even 1.7W is totally enough to do stupid damage to things and with light not just going in a straight line and all, I don't want in any way to be responsible for eye / property damage! I'm not implying you don't know laser safety or anything of the sort. It's just a really dangerous experiment : )

 

[the15thwiseone]

Have you guys ever thought of having it be a bi-lateral Laser diode design? as in: A laser comes from both sides to one focal point.

All be it: its an idea, you could use a beam spreader to make the beam "appear larger" and thus create a larger area of effectiveness.

Just an idea: not too impossible just not simple xD

 

[Illuminum3415]

With the thread op's design it only takes a fraction of an angle change on that return mirror to shoot the light saber holder with the beam or anyone else behind you. Only way to guarantee that the end mirror would not suffer from tilting is to limit its size and run a rod full tang in the handle and threaded into the top mirror. Weight and balance may limit its length. Collision at another laser would be subject to damage on the center rod only. A photo-sensor may be fitted on the base close to the emitter, as long as the laser beam returning from the mirror hits a certain radius, laser functions fine. If it fails to hit that region, that is, outside of reflectors safety tolerances , it locks itself out.

If the beam dump is used, expect it to heat up like a branding iron with lightsaber wattages. This could be an advantage, provided you know how to joust with a branding iron.

 

[the15thwiseone]

your saying colliding lasers could cause damage to the support structure?
Any way to limit that damage so its small? I mean...if the support structure could be damaged, lol thats very intersting obviously that could do some damage XD

 

[the15thwiseone]

I present the Laser Saw

In theory it should work...just alligning all those lasers? yuk.

 

[Likquidblur]

i was thinking about this on the weekend when making my driver for my laser, i think everyone thinks about making a light saber at some point . Could you just modulate/pulse the laser at the fraction of the speed of light distance (i think i muddled something up there.) I found a calculator on the net and to get a distance of the light saber to 0.012 Km (1.2 m) the laser needs tobe pulsed at .00000004 light seconds. If the laser was flashing that fast would it make the laser weaker? if so then all you need to do is adjust the laser to right amout of power to cut through spaceships hahaha

No need for an edge if its powerful enough me thinks

 

[the15thwiseone]

i was thinking about this on the weekend when making my driver for my laser, i think everyone thinks about making a light saber at some point . Could you just modulate/pulse the laser at the fraction of the speed of light distance (i think i muddled something up there.) I found a calculator on the net and to get a distance of the light saber to 0.012 Km (1.2 m) the laser needs tobe pulsed at .00000004 light seconds. If the laser was flashing that fast would it make the laser weaker? if so then all you need to do is adjust the laser to right amout of power to cut through spaceships hahaha

No need for an edge if its powerful enough me thinks

I don't think that changes the distance at which the photon traverses...if you turn it on, then off it will still traverse its "aloted distance" but if it hits a equal wavelength photon it will stop. (cause of destructive Interfearance)
A light second is a measure of how far a photon will travel in a second which is: 299 792.458 kilometers so you'd need to blink it...every 0.00000004 times 299 792.458 kilometers, or you need to blink it every .00000004 seconds?

 

[Illuminum3415]

your saying colliding lasers could cause damage to the support structure?
Any way to limit that damage so its small? I mean...if the support structure could be damaged, lol thats very intersting obviously that could do some damage XD

My words have issues yes, I mean to say colliding support rods could cause damage...if you swung it thinking it'll cut whatever it touches. If its possible to turn a torque wrench into an S shape, its certainly possible that some reckless user will bend your light saber

 

[Krogith]

My words have issues yes, I mean to say colliding support rods could cause damage...if you swung it thinking it'll cut whatever it touches. If its possible to turn a torque wrench into an S shape, its certainly possible that some reckless user will bend your light saber

Oh My You Figured it Out... That was the problem holding him up on this project... As soon as you fix that issue it's ready to be made

I can't wait to see it... Will you please take pictures of "all" your "attempts"? :crackup:

 

[benmwv]

Sorry to bring this back, but nobody has mentioned a main reason why this whole idea is fail.

"One way mirrors" are only half mirrors where on one side of the mirror it is dark and on the other side (that you observe from) is very well lit. The mirror allows half of the light from the dark side come through, but it is easily covered by half of the light of the well lit side bouncing back. It is all just pretty much an optical illusion, no actual "one way mirrors".

So what would happen is that on the initial pass of the beam through the mirror only half would go through so from you 1.7 watt only a 850mw beam would come out. It would then bounce off the full mirror back toward the half mirror where half of it (425mw) would pass back through the mirror and fry the diode. The other 425mw would bounce back and be halved again adding another 212.5mw to the frying of the diode and the other 212.5mw to the beam. This halving would continue to occur and if the total power of the lightsaber was represented graphically it would be a curve (best way to represent its approximate shape on a keyboard is "r" shaped) and it's asymptote would be 1.7 watt meaning it would get ever closer to, but never actually reach the original 1.7 watt (and it would only do this for a split second until the diode was fried)

You would be better off just attaching 3 foot rod with a "laser-stopper plate" on the end to your laser. At least then it wouldn't fry itself as soon as you turned it on.

 

[SwearBear]

My two cents of this is that lighsabers aren't based on lasers. It's probably plasma like in a plasma cutter in a metal shop. We've had one in our high school metal shop and it cut quarter inch steel sheets like hot knife through butter. Unlike a laser beam, a beam of plasma wouldn't need mirrors to terminate it but will be regulated by pressure at which it leaves the nozzle (lightsaber hilt in this case). Still pretty damn hard to get all of those gasses in something as tiny as a flashlight-sized cylinder, but again it won't need mirrors and it is gonna cut stuff up pretty fast.