pseudonomen137 said:
Well, I still don't think the CO2 backpack is the best idea - besides making power and cooling portable, a fragile large tube is not the ideal solution for a handheld - but anyway.
Not nessisarily large. I dont know about quality, but I've seen a number of CO2 lasers on ebay that are 10W and only 1' - 1.5' long, which could be used for a portable. And I realize the pwoer is a problem, I was looking at running the thing off a motorcycle battery or even a car battery --- one modle even WAS run off a car battery for demonstration pictures, so I know it's possible. The biggest problem I've run into with design is how to protect the blass tube from knocks and bumps (I know it ownt survive getting knocked accross a room, nomater how well protected, but it needs to be able to survive getting knocked around a little if it's portable, as will happen --- biggest problem I've run into..)
Using the laser to guide the spark is the whole point of this setup. I could easily use a tesla coil and draw sparks in a massive radius, I wanted to be able to direct the spark to a single point without 'rigging' it by using special wires and metals and underground rods and such.
But portability aside, is 10W not enough to ionice the distance I'm wanting? how high would I need to go? 40W? 80W? Higher???
EDIT:
@ mike: ouch, yes, that's part of why I was talkign about shielding the laser, I thought about the dangers of the spark commign back, though I didn't think about what could happen to ME if it hit... (lol worry about a $200-$500 laser, not your life... yeah, I have problems at times...)