Re: Would you use your laser to start the camp fir
My experience with a well focused 1W 808:
Paper - white paper doesnt even get warm but as soon as the focal point hits the tiniest grain of dust it vaporizes it leaving a char on the paper and i can start cutting it! Thing is it doesn't light the paper, just burns on the spot. Black-body radiation is visible if you trace a line, once a char is started it's able to sustain a line due to it burning slightly ahead of the laser.
Wood -
Pine - gets mildly warm, but once you hit a dark spot it's easy to do the same thing as on paper and draw on it. Nothing more than smoke and surface char though.
Redgum - same as pine but it doesn't work as well.
Just as an idea... I once sat down to cut through a match with only a 1W laser. It took about 10 minutes to get through it.
And re laser protection: I highly recommend anyone who has a laser gets a Pelican case.
You wanna protect something, put it in a pelican. Forever warranty, you break it they replace it.
I do sound like a commercial but after having had 6 pelican cases in the family (only sold on because of size constraints) I'd trust anything to them. Honestly, I'd take a $20,000 portable laser into the middle of a lake or anywhere really if it was in a Pelican.