Guy Builds Star Trek Phaser

Jack by the hedge said:
Actually, infrared does show up as that bluey-violet colour on my phone camera. I use it when checking fibreoptic connections to quickly identify transmit and receive fibres.

The sensors in digital cameras react to near infrared so they need to filter it out. If the filter's removed or the IR is intense enough, it shows up.
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Well true . .on the camera .. with filter removed .. maybe .. who knows. Still if the laser was IR it would be hardly any simpler than using 445nm diode. IR used to be cheaper and 445 used to be well .. unavailable .. but that was 3 years ago .. times changes. Now everyone can have 445nm laser around 1.5W around $100.
And this is 445nm diode, trust me, I have such laser myself (not in a shape of a phaser though), and I know the guy, I bought my laser from him.
 
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What do you mean not much of an achievement? It's not any kind of achievement! I mean, if the guy had maybe literally fabricated his own phaser - plastic shell and everything - I might be a little more impressed; but to me this is the equivalent of taking an air conditioner out of a window and mounting it in another window, and thinking this represents ingenuity.

I'm not making fun of what this guy did, I'm making fun of all the oozing here over it.
 
Checkmite said:
What do you mean not much of an achievement? It's not any kind of achievement! I mean, if the guy had maybe literally fabricated his own phaser - plastic shell and everything - I might be a little more impressed; but to me this is the equivalent of taking an air conditioner out of a window and mounting it in another window, and thinking this represents ingenuity.

I'm not making fun of what this guy did, I'm making fun of all the oozing here over it.
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To be fair, the guy did have to design and build his own driver circuit for the diode, and machine some sort of housing to hold the diode and keep it cool, and construct something for the optics. Electronic wise, it's about as impressive as building your own audio amp out of discrete components.

It is a cool little toy, though. I hope he wears goggles.
 
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Dr.Sid said:
Jayrob is GURU of laser pointer making .. I'm pretty sure he knows the rules ..
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That's cool. I used to work for Spectra Physics, and strongest tube lasers we worked with were only 5 milliwatts....and we had very strict protocols about eye protection. From what I read, that "phaser" he build was 1.3 watts, 260 times more powerful than the lasers I worked with. That's just crazy for a DIY. :)

The lasers I worked on weren't nearly as cool...and were literally covered in ****.

Dialgrade1160-2.jpg


They put them in drainage and sewer pipers to confirm the grade is correct. I was probably one of the only laser technicians who had to worry about washing poop off their hands after working on a laser. :)
 
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Macgyver1968 said:
To be fair, the guy did have to design and build his own driver circuit for the diode, and machine some sort of housing to hold the diode and keep it cool, and construct something for the optics. Electronic wise, it's about as impressive as building your own audio amp out of discrete components.
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The circuit would have only required an extra two wires (three if he decided to add a fan) and the diode's original mounting from the PS3 could've merely been simply screwed into the surrounding internal plastic of the front of the gun. There are no optics required outside of what originally came from the PS3 already included with the diode; he only had to cut a hole in the tip of the gun.

Also, I'm always automatically cynical about the escapades of Trekkies.
 
Checkmite said:
The circuit would have only required an extra two wires (three if he decided to add a fan) and the diode's original mounting from the PS3 could've merely been simply screwed into the surrounding internal plastic of the front of the gun. There are no optics required outside of what originally came from the PS3 already included with the diode; he only had to cut a hole in the tip of the gun.

Also, I'm always automatically cynical about the escapades of Trekkies.
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You're absolutely right not to trust Trekkies. :)
 
Checkmite said:
The circuit would have only required an extra two wires (three if he decided to add a fan) and the diode's original mounting from the PS3 could've merely been simply screwed into the surrounding internal plastic of the front of the gun. There are no optics required outside of what originally came from the PS3 already included with the diode; he only had to cut a hole in the tip of the gun.

Also, I'm always automatically cynical about the escapades of Trekkies.
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The laser for sure needs new driver circuit, and heatsink, and optics. Most probably even new battery compartment and switch. I'm not saying it's more complex then guitar amp or radio receiver .. it's not. But saying you can take 'ps3 diode' and put it inside a toy without any additional modifications and pop balloons with it is nonsense. Also this is 445nm version of the phaser, twice as powerful as common blue ray disk diode. Mine takes 3.2 amps at battery. Really few toys can handle that ..
 
Checkmite said:
The circuit would have only required an extra two wires (three if he decided to add a fan) and the diode's original mounting from the PS3 could've merely been simply screwed into the surrounding internal plastic of the front of the gun. There are no optics required outside of what originally came from the PS3 already included with the diode; he only had to cut a hole in the tip of the gun.

Also, I'm always automatically cynical about the escapades of Trekkies.
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Wow. Glad you're so superior to the rest of us mere mortals. I have trouble with soldering, even though I'm going to need to learn it as I get further into becoming an Owner/Op. (Most trucking company start-ups begin with junk rigs, and where I'm working now, there are two trucks that are being cannibalized to make one good one. Lots of soldering and assembly to make it all work, given the electronics in use.)

I'd say what he did is pretty cool simply because there's so much I don't know about the stuff he used, and that even includes the phaser. I didn't even know they made them until I saw it here.

At this rate, my ignore list is going to get pretty long. Or not. We'll see.
 
Macgyver1968 said:
That's cool. I used to work for Spectra Physics, and strongest tube lasers we worked with were only 5 milliwatts....and we had very strict protocols about eye protection. From what I read, that "phaser" he build was 1.3 watts, 260 times more powerful than the lasers I worked with. That's just crazy for a DIY. :)

The lasers I worked on weren't nearly as cool...and were literally covered in ****.

[qimg]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46946106/Dialgrade1160-2.jpg[/qimg]

They put them in drainage and sewer pipers to confirm the grade is correct. I was probably one of the only laser technicians who had to worry about washing poop off their hands after working on a laser. :)
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Sweet ! 5mw is considered 'safe' these days. Most toys are just 1mW though. Unless they are from china, some of that cheap stuff is actually dangerously OVER the specs .. and while it is declared as 5mW, it can have even 50.

When we are at it, and there seems to be some people actually being infected with lasers at this very moment .. I always thought THIS thread at LPF is great way to start ..

http://laserpointerforums.com/f53/hit-eye-1000mw-445nm-blue-laser-69469.html

And yes, while it is covered in detail on page 3 or so of the thread, Xoul's avatar is indeed picture of the eye.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Sweet ! 5mw is considered 'safe' these days. Most toys are just 1mW though. Unless they are from china, some of that cheap stuff is actually dangerously OVER the specs .. and while it is declared as 5mW, it can have even 50.

When we are at it, and there seems to be some people actually being infected with lasers at this very moment .. I always thought THIS thread at LPF is great way to start ..

http://laserpointerforums.com/f53/hit-eye-1000mw-445nm-blue-laser-69469.html

And yes, while it is covered in detail on page 3 or so of the thread, Xoul's avatar is indeed picture of the eye.
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This was back in the early 90's when laser levels were huge hulking things that still used tubes, like this:

540x405_niwelator-laserowy-s-617752.jpg


While I was there, they came out with the first diode laser levels...this was considered small:

3571234-0.jpg


My...how things have changed. And get off my lawn!!! (shakes cane)
 
Macgyver1968 said:
This was back in the early 90's when laser levels were huge hulking things that still used tubes, like this:

[qimg]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46946106/540x405_niwelator-laserowy-s-617752.jpg[/qimg]

While I was there, they came out with the first diode laser levels...this was considered small:

[qimg]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46946106/3571234-0.jpg[/qimg]

My...how things have changed. And get off my lawn!!! (shakes cane)
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I've hauled loads to places that produce lasers, and seen some of the work done. (It helps when you're making deliveries to certain places to get an understanding of what it is a customer does so you can serve them better.) Back then, (yeah, it's been a few years ago), some of the "small" industrial lasers were as big as a minivan, and I was hauling casing and chassis. (Light loads, though, which had to be secured carefully, or you cracked the framework. Insurance companies just LOVED that.) You'd bring it in the box of a '53 dry van, and hope like hell you didn't do something stupid on the way in.

A few months ago, I hauled in a load of electronics. Several million dollars worth of gear, more laser firepower than I'd hauled in to previous clients with their uber-sized lasers, yet small enough to keep a nine-year-old blissed out for hours.

Dagnabbit, Mac, quit bogarting all the prunes.
 
Roadtoad said:
I've hauled loads to places that produce lasers, and seen some of the work done. (It helps when you're making deliveries to certain places to get an understanding of what it is a customer does so you can serve them better.) Back then, (yeah, it's been a few years ago), some of the "small" industrial lasers were as big as a minivan, and I was hauling casing and chassis. (Light loads, though, which had to be secured carefully, or you cracked the framework. Insurance companies just LOVED that.) You'd bring it in the box of a '53 dry van, and hope like hell you didn't do something stupid on the way in.

A few months ago, I hauled in a load of electronics. Several million dollars worth of gear, more laser firepower than I'd hauled in to previous clients with their uber-sized lasers, yet small enough to keep a nine-year-old blissed out for hours.

Dagnabbit, Mac, quit bogarting all the prunes.
Click to expand...

Oh...shut up and have another Ensure and vodka.
 
Dr.Sid said:
The laser for sure needs new driver circuit, and heatsink, and optics. Most probably even new battery compartment and switch. I'm not saying it's more complex then guitar amp or radio receiver .. it's not. But saying you can take 'ps3 diode' and put it inside a toy without any additional modifications and pop balloons with it is nonsense. Also this is 445nm version of the phaser, twice as powerful as common blue ray disk diode. Mine takes 3.2 amps at battery. Really few toys can handle that ..
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Fine; hit up Ebay. Apparently people have been making lasers exactly like this for years. Now I'm even less impressed.
 
Roadtoad said:
Wow. Glad you're so superior to the rest of us mere mortals.
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Only the ones who are Trekkies! Ugh.

Wanna know the worst part about that guy's "real phaser"? He actually retained the cheesy soundboard and speaker.
 
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