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FrozenGate by Avery

popping helium balloons?

I

ixfd64

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Sep 12, 2007
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I read that helium balloons are hard to pop because helium carries heat away faster. Someone said that he was not able to pop a balloon with an RPL-165. If this is true, does anyone know how much optical power is needed to pop a helium-filled black balloon, assuming that the beam has a diameter of 1.4 mm?
 





How about Hydrogen with a match taped to it? No matches? Use Dichlorosilane. Wait, my mom said no.

My parents suck.
 
huh, i think we all know the outcome of that one! LOL hmm the helium one sounds interesting, but i can't test it, i haven't got a high powered laser. Anyone with helium, black balloons and a high powered laser wanna test this? :D
 
no helium, black balloons nor powerful laser here to check, but i am sure its just urban legend. helium is quite different to plain air, but in terms of thermal dissipation and heat-transfer, both are really low pressure gases (at normal atmospheric pressure), and have no chance to dissipate heat at all, in a balloon+laser case. much more important would be the balloon, how "hard" inflated it is, color and so on. by the time the absorbed heat from the laser comes through the balloon-rubber to reach the gas inside, the outer surface is already melted.
my 2c anyway.

manuel
 
Hmm.. i'd think so too. Perhaps the water in a water balloon might make a decent coolant, but i think you'd still be able to pop one of those, right?
 
ive had problems popping water balloons
it usually makes a small hole and the water leaks out
 
you should have no problems popping helium balloons, but as me_too_lazy said water balloons would be more difficult.
 
water balloons and difficult, yea! as a kid (pretending i am none any more hehe) i read about it, and tried it: couldnt pop a waterballoon with a lighter, not after minutes, or however long i tried that time!
try it, impress people with a bet that they will lose! :-)

bringing a waterballoon to leak with a laser? must be pretty high power i guess! but then, how many mw does a lighterflame have..? temperature != power!

manuel
 
I dont know how manny people here will understand that != meand does not.
It a programing thing. ;D
 
OK so like you know I have black baloons and He in my welding rig. So I filled a couple 5" black party baloons with Helium......

A focused red ---- Reght NOW.. A DL95 Green with 115 mW -- well , it took a second longer to pop at 3 feet.

I can't see how the gas could diffuse the heat simply because of its atomic mass in comparison to the wall of the balloon.

Busted ----

Mike
 
LOL mike, congrats on your 1001th post :D yeah that water ballon and lighter is a really cool trick, i tried it once, and my balloon popped, maybe i didn't have enpugh water in it??
:D
 
Things --

Thanks for the notice. I didn't know I went over the mark !!!

1001 !!! Another round barkeep !!!

Mike
 
Yeah my diy red can make holes in water balloons but wont pop i put like 8 holes in it at once, they form almost instanlty but still no pop, so i end up grabbing it and throwing it lol, I like using real baloons and filling with water, alot bigger then a waterbaloon.


....lazer.... ;D ;D ;D
 
I've just tried it, and water balloons seem very difficult indeed. I sharpied one and hit it with 100++ mW, to no avail. The laser ablates the ink just fine, but it will not make a hole all the way.
 
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