Man I've been busy...

[EPRSEric]

So, I finally got my first laser going...an LPC-815 (Aixiz glass) with a rkcstr driver on max. That should be giving me right around 300mw. When I get some extra cash, I'm going to get the Meredith glass mod. I'm putting it in a Star Trek TNG phaser, so that's the next purchase.

Next, I picked up one of those foggers from WalMart for $17.00 on clearance. I barely used any fluid and completely fogged a 120sf room in about 20 seconds. Damn, even my 5mw lasers look cool now!

I also have an experiment for my paranormal research that's almost complete, where we setup a beam as a tripwire and shoot it into a photocell. By measuring the resistance drop across the photocell, we can tell if anything has tripped the beam, even if it's not solid/visible. Tests with water vapor and smoke have confirmed this.

Lastly, I have a 30mw greenie coming from RayFoss...I can't wait! When I'm not playing around with it, it's going to be used with diffraction grating for our laser grid system for our paranormal research.

 

[jeffd]

Hmm sounds interesting... what kind of paranormal research are you doing?

 

[EPRSEric]

Hmm sounds interesting... what kind of paranormal research are you doing?

My personal focus is always on new EVP techniques, but our group is also experimenting with my new found love of lasers and different ways we can use them to detect anomalies...hence the photocell tripwire and diffraction grid. Another experiment I'm working on with 5mw modules is to cover the range from UV to IR and see if we can detect, specifically, what visible spectrum these anomalies reside in...truly groundbreaking stuff you won't see on TV ...though that may change if our producer ever gets things going!

 

[Rob]

Wow what an interesting experiment you have going there. If you ever get any vids of an actual event with the tripwire I'd love to see it sometime. The paranormal has always been fascinating for me.

 

[Meatball]

Be careful when dabbling with that kind of stuff... I've seen some real messed up crap (and not purposely). I still don't know what to think of some of it.

Will the humidity level of the surrounding air affect the intensity of the beam? If the beams medium changes at all, you'll get different resistances...

 

[Trevor]

Very interesting uses; I'm intrigued. I'd love to see what comes out of it...

-Trevor

 

[RA_pierce]

If the beams medium changes at all, you'll get different resistances...

Yes. Even a transparent medium like water, glass, fog, smoke, etc. absorbs and reflects some of the beam. Depending on what kind of matter your anomalies consist of, you may or may not get a change in resistance.
Also, you may want to use infrared rather than visible. I don't know what these paranormal entities can "see" but I would think an invisible wavelength, or very close to invisible, might be better for keeping your hardware hidden.

I don't know much about paranormal things, so maybe none of this applies... just a few thoughts.

Good luck on your project!

 

[HIMNL9]

Infrareds become stopped from CO2, too (CO2 measurement cells use this system), so it can be falsed from pollution, too .....

Other than this, i heard times ago that the researchers in this field uses spectrographic cameras from IR to UV, cause you can't know what wavelenghts can be adsorbed or reflected from an immaterial entity, in the case that something similar really exists .....

 

[EPRSEric]

Yes. Even a transparent medium like water, glass, fog, smoke, etc. absorbs and reflects some of the beam. Depending on what kind of matter your anomalies consist of, you may or may not get a change in resistance.
Also, you may want to use infrared rather than visible. I don't know what these paranormal entities can "see" but I would think an invisible wavelength, or very close to invisible, might be better for keeping your hardware hidden.

I don't know much about paranormal things, so maybe none of this applies... just a few thoughts.

Good luck on your project!

I'm actually counting on the fact that any kind of change in the environment will cause a change in resistance. Instead of just waiting for something solid to "break" the beam, we'll be able to tell if something which causes a change to the environment (the way we "track" ghosts) passes through it. We'll be looking for significant drops in resistance, and probably more rarely, increases.

The main reason for not going IR, is for aiming purposes. It'll be kind of hard to reflect the beam via a series of mirrors back to a photocell if we can't actually see it...lol. Coupled with the wavelength experiment above, I'm hoping to eventually figure out what the best wavelength is for detection...whichever one is most refracted or reflected by these anomalies.