silliness with a 40 mw Evo Pro

[kingdave2357]

Please edit your previous posts instead of double posting, saves space and prevents clutter. 50mW will touch very low clouds easily, but higher ones and those distant mountains will need more power, 150-200mW will do it. Red and blu-ray both do the same as green but arent very visible so the effect wouldnt be the same.

 

[Pontiacg5]

A cheap laser with crappy divergence won't be able to "touch" anything. The divergence is so crappy that the beam would be too big by the time it reached the clouds.

And the $40 laser is a red dilda style, it is not green.

 

[bloompyle]

A cheap laser with crappy divergence won't be able to "touch" anything. The divergence is so crappy that the beam would be too big by the time it reached the clouds.

And the $40 laser is a red dilda style, it is not green.

Could you give me a location anyway? haha, I'm still interested, seems pretty cheap, in a good way.

 

[kingdave2357]

A cheap laser with crappy divergence won't be able to "touch" anything. The divergence is so crappy that the beam would be too big by the time it reached the clouds.

Thats a negatory good buddie If the clouds are low enough and you have around 50mW of green you will see the dot on the clouds, I take my focusable greenie putting out just under 50mW and unfocus it to a big dot and use it to 'color' clouds, red and blu-ray work as well. But it has to be a low lying cloud cover on a rainy foggy night inorder to acheive the desired effects.

 

[cistercian]

*gasp*:drool: will a 50mw green do it? What about red and blu-ray? I have both clouds and mountains. (Rocky mountains) but they're a couple hundred miles away, and I doubt it will do anything noticable due to the distance. Still pretty cool, could somebody show me a video of it? Hey OP take a vid of it for me if you can, or pics that would be so cool! =D And what if hikers turn around, will they get any damage from a 50mw green laser given that it's 200mi away? The 'dot' would be huge, they wouldn't experience any damage to their eyes right?

Really low cloud decks can be painted with 5 to 8mw pretty easily.My 650nm 20mw red is visible on very low clouds too.40mw 532nm works better, of course.I have an ancient 670nm red @ about 10mw I built.Using really lame gen 1 night vision gear I could not only see the beam, but the spots on clouds too.With the naked eye, it did not work!
I live @ 2180ft altitude so big fluffy cumulus cloud bases are easy with 40mw.Distant hills is only a couple of miles, I certainly could not see the dot at 10 or 20miles!And to be done at that range requires air clarity as happens only a few days a year...like when an arctic air mass moves in after a cold front.
Scud clouds from a strong front are good targets.High cirrus clouds?No.

And snow on a mountaintop is an excellent target.Some varieties are more reflective than others(tiny ice balls are epic).
There is lots of fun to be had below 50mw!You just have to try it!

 

[cistercian]

Thats a negatory good buddie If the clouds are low enough and you have around 50mW of green you will see the dot on the clouds, I take my focusable greenie putting out just under 50mW and unfocus it to a big dot and use it to 'color' clouds, red and blu-ray work as well. But it has to be a low lying cloud cover on a rainy foggy night inorder to acheive the desired effects.

He does have a point.Fog layers 250ft up can be painted with a 5mw red!Above 5000ft it is harder.The only laser I have that painted cirrostratus was my 670nm red @10mw.But the optics on it yield a fat, dim beam 8mm in diameter(and the dot was viewed with NVG equipment, totally cheating!!).The convergence is very good for a diode.The lens set is from a canon clc1150 color laser copier.The threads are very fine for excellent adjustment accuracy.They were designed to focus down to a ridiculously small dot.I used a telescope and target 500yards away to adjust for infinity.It works well.
My best so far with the Evo is altostratus.Not bad considering typical haze here in the Appalachians.

 

[cistercian]

Match update:I still cannot get a book of matches!Everyone has lighters, and no paper matches.Arrrrgggghhhh!
On a brighter note, bread bags with dark areas are pierced quickly, even faster than a trash bag.Hershey bar wrappers are still the easiest, but the bread bag is close.
As to photos...I have an old nikon digital camera, which has a very slow ccd.Extra lame for beam shots.And I can't afford a roll of Konica srv-3200(if they even still make it) for my Nikon FM-2.Even then, I would have to use a time exposure which would in no way accurately portray the beam.

 

[Pontiacg5]

I can hit a normal cloud from the ground with my laser, and you can see the dot. You might be able to light the cloud up with crappy divergence, but you cant put a dot on a cloud at normal height.

 

[cistercian]

I can hit a normal cloud from the ground with my laser, and you can see the dot. You might be able to light the cloud up with crappy divergence, but you cant put a dot on a cloud at normal height.

When I say paint, I mean I can see the dot on the cloud.But I am using the term paint the same way as it is used in RADAR.If you get no reflection, you have not "painted" the target.(In the case of a laser, seeing the dot on the target is painting it)
I apologize for using weird jargon and by so doing giving anyone the wrong impression.Electronics was my first and continues to be my biggest passion.RADAR has always fascinated me, early development of it in particular.It was no mean feat to "paint" a target hundreds of miles away.The term "paint",btw comes from the image of the echo of the target painted on the phosphorescent screen of the RADAR display.

 

[bloompyle]

I can't wait for reaction from other people "It's like Independance Day! What's going on with that could? Its...turning green...red...purple?!...red...what the hell is going on!?!?":wtf:

 

[kingdave2357]

Red isnt that noticeable unless its a VERY thick low lying fog, green, yellow and blue(473nm) are all great on a foggy or rainy cloudy night. The more power the further it will go, but its not going to light it up like your thinking, just a mild glow around the dot, and you can only really see it with green or very highpowered violet...

 

[Pontiacg5]

Its very hard to see the dot with the beam being as bright as it is, but you can see it.

Its also next to impossible to take a picture of a dot on a cloud :/

 

[bloompyle]

I tried it last night through my window because it was a bit rainy, I had a full overcast, but since I don't see a beam through my window, I was worried about that I wasn't shinning it where I THOUGHT I was...and a bit worried about my laser going through the cloud and shining a plane I couldn't see, I'm so very cautious about shinning planes....Also, I knew that through a glass window, it loses power, so through double paned windows......it musta been weak, it was kindova been a pointless endeavor from the start...

 

[kingdave2357]

Be very cautious doing that, windows are a easy place to catch an unexpected reflection, it should have hit the cloud cover though, I actually draw circles and lines on clouds with my viper