[sdiy] Laser Harp in action

[Richard Wentk]

At 12:10 29/06/2004 +0100, Paul Maddox wrote:
>Jay,
>
> > PLEASE CAN WE SEE THE LAZER HARP AT SYNTH-DIY?!!   Please, oh please,
> > oh please oh please oh please?!!!!
>
>spoke with Tony, he raises some good points
>
>1) its not his
>
>and
>
>2) its not exactly 'safe'
>
>I have to agree, given that it can burn hands/powersupplies/blind people, I
>would be inclined to say perhaps its a good idea not to.. Until we have a
>lower power version :-)

I heard a story from the proverbial reliable source about some laser guys 
who set up for a show, went to dinner, came back and realised that because 
they'd been less than thorough about beam positioning (curtains...) the 
theatre had burned down.

I've seen systems up to about 100W available. Those are visible from more 
than 30 miles away. At that kind of power your eyeball explodes instantly, 
followed soon after by the rest of your skull.

These are very scary toys. Tons of DIY fun. :-)

The most useful laser modules have an analogue brightness modulation input 
so you can scale the power right down to sane levels if you don't want to 
start cutting through things/people/buildings/planets/etc.

If I ever get my design working I promise I'll bring a safe version of it 
to an S-DIY UK meet. It'll probably take a year or three so don't hold your 
breath, but I hope it will be worth the wait.

Richard