i made my self a mad laser maglight today.

[afaridan]

hey kids,

so last night i was on here, reading and stuff...
got me hard again for a green laser pointer.

so i went to jaycar today,bought myself a "10mw green laser pointer"
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ST3117&CATID=14&form=CAT&SUBCATID=585

i pulled apart my 2dcell maglight, fitted the baby in,
its mad. i use the original maglight button, the original batteries,
made it work perfect, no power interruptions or nothing.
(yeah im pretty talented, and modest)

what i wanna know is,
how do i know how much infared is coming out and should i be worried?
im the kind of guy that will play with this thing for a week prob max and get over it.

no im not gonna point it airplanes, but i might find a cat and see if i can get it to chase the dot haha

sorry i got a.d.d. so im blabbering.

so the question is....


how do i know if looking at the green dot on my wall will mess up my eyes?
im guessing being from jaycar it wont be too dodgy right?
and also, it shines past the glass lens of the maglight so im hoping this will help with the safety factor?

thanks all..

 

[DimeRazorback]

I didn't think that anything over 1mw was sold commercially in Australia??

Or is that just "laser pointers"??

:thinking:

 

[afaridan]

i think you cant buy them ready to go.
i think you can buy them to put in a light show thingy.


so.. ready to bling pilots = no
disco disco...= yeah bro haha

 

[Th232]

Well, given the definition of laser, and where green is in the visible light spectrum, I wouldn't expect any IR to be coming out of it. Just what I know of lasers though.

 

[RyanA]

A green works differently, it is converted over from a different spectrum (red or IR, I think [I'm no expert myself]) Thus there is a need for IR sheilding with greens. There is a company working on a green diode though, should be cool.:naughty:

 

[Th232]

Ahh, didn't know that.

Always interesting to learn new info, thanks for the correction.:thumbsup:

 

[afaridan]

ok but how bad is it?
should i really worry about it?
or is it just something that is said for the sake of saying it?

 

[roadie]

errr recently i made an even worse beast ...... 7 x 150 mw red lasers together on to a old 3 c cell host ......

 

[csshih]

Green lasers are usually DPSS..
basically, converting infrared light to green light by doubling the wavelength with a crystal.

of course, some infrared light does still get through, and is usually filtered out.

 

[jspeybro]

I wouldn't worry too much about the IR light that might come out (I doubt there will be more that a few tens of microwatt). I would be more concerned with the power level of the green light coming out. At this power level, there could already be eye damage if you would be looking in the laser. That is why these lasers cannot be bought out of a box in a store.
Too bad this isn't clearly indicated on these online websites.


for what it's worth, mostly 1064nm (IR) is used to generate color lasers by using birefringent crystals which can double the frequency. To efficiently double the frequency of the light, it should be incident to the crystal with a specific angle. This angle already makes sure most of the IR light will not get out of the housing.

Johan

 

[SirJMD]

Dont tell me you paid $100 for a 10mW module?


Anyway.. Normaly a green laser works like this:

Pump-diode -> crystal -> IR filter -> focusing lens

 

[Rangedunits]

Dont tell me you paid $100 for a 10mW module?


Anyway.. Normaly a green laser works like this:

Pump-diode -> crystal -> IR filter -> focusing lens

I had the same reaction, 10mW module worth 10-15$.