more pics

Well, the spyders are sure nice, but it'll be a while before i can afford one. originally i planned on buying a nexus in march, but with the price reduction of the fusion, i might buy that instead. $500 is still a lot though, and i think i'd rather wait untill june or so and be able to afford a 200mW spyder.

we'll see when i have some more money. In the mean time, here are some more pics taken with my 55mW. This image appears to be taken with a yellow laser, but it is actually the green laser. Green and red combine to make yellow, and by partially allowing light through the red felt-like poppy, the resulting colour is yellow.

This Image was taken using a combination of 4 different mirrors. The beam is first shined into one mirror, and then reflected into a series of 3 mirrors arranged in a |_| shape where the beam is trapped moving back and forth before it finally escapes. as the beam escapes, it shines back into the mirror that i started with, and then onto the wall from there. All in all, a pretty interesting effect.




This Image combined both the 55mW Wicked Laser, but also a 5mW Leadlight laser. the 5mW isn't immediately visible due to the much stronger 55mW, but some of the fainter lighter lines are caused by it, and do add to the effect in this image.

I'll have some even nicer images tomorrow, and soon images taken with the pulsar (100mW red, 640nm) laser as well.

OMG!!!

Well, now that the smoke has settled (it's been an exciting 4 hours) our questions have been answered: http://wickedlasers.com/products.php?content=spyder

that's right, both high powered greens, and high powered blues. I will never have enough money to afford one... but still, WOW! remember, if anyone does wish to purchase one of these amazing products, 5% off is still a huge chunk of money, so remember to select "add to cart" and enter the code "3962" hit update, and it will shave off 5%

i hope i win WL's contest, that will put me halfway towards the 200mW

Spyder?!

Sorry i havn't updated for the last few days, i've been swamped with HW.

today i checked WL and noticed a surprise. They've done a little reorganizing. For Example, the 85, 105, and 115mW models have been taken down, and the Fusion laser (125mW) has been put together with the Nexus (95mW) under the "Extreme" catagory. The Elite catagory is empty, but it appears to be under construction.

looking at the other menues on the page, it looks like a new one has been added called "Spyder" it links to the empty Elite catagory. It also displays a price range of $999 to $3499!!!! Wow!

So what are the Sypders? my guess is that they are the new 200-400mW lasers. Now, i guess if you are a major laser hobbyist, and feel the need to instantly vaporize objects 100 miles away, then this is for you. I'm probably exagurating, but we'll see soon when the site is finished and the products added. Also, i noticed that by using the code provided to the left, on the most expensive product, it would save you $175 which would be enough to buy the much-needed acompanying goggles (although at that price they might come included) but either way, 175 could also buy you a 35mW laser to compare to, and how much of a difference 10x makes. kind of like me comparing my 55mW green to my 5mW greenie, or my 100mW pulsar to my 5mW. red.

anyways, i'm excited to say the least. Someone is going to have to buy one of these so that i can tell you just how amazing they are. but even the $999 which i'm guessing to be 200mW is pretty expensive, i'll have to do some saving, or win some contests. i better start submitting more pictures too. speaking of pictures, here are a few more random mirror pics

This Image, and many others like it, were created using the mirror set up in my bathroom, combined with long second long exposure shots on my camera, which allowed me to move the dot while the camera was taking the picture. This creates some neat effects, and also helps to capture beam visibility when the laser is not moving.
Many of my photos involve using the mirror set-up. I've recently purchased a set of tiled mirrors off of ebay. The mirrors are second surfaced mirrors, meaning that the light must travel twice through the glass. This will result in slightly distorted reflection and will cause the beam to diverge more than normal, but it should still create some stunning effects

some pictures

I've been taking all kinds of pictures since i got my 55mW. I started off with just a couple simple images. The picutre on the left was me shooting a tree with the laser. this was one of the first ones i took. i actually discovered that my camera doesn't do a very good job with picking up the beam, so i was actually relying on the heat escaping my bedroom window to cause the condensation which resulted in the beam lighting up in places. The picture quality isn't all that great, but the place where the beam seems to stop is actually a tree a couple properties over.


Again, just a simple image. there are a couple vine plants which hang down over my bedroom window. this picture was just from me waving the laser through them. the camera doesn't pick up the beam at all if the laser is moving, so it just looks like a bunch of dots. These were basically just a few test images, to tell the truth, it had been several months since i had last used my camera, so it was more of me just testing my camera than the laser. I'll have some much more impressive images tomorrow.

Wicked Lasers

The place where i bought my lasers from is Wicked Lasers
they sell 15-125mW lasers, ranging in prices.

wikipedia had a price guide for 5mW laser products, although if you do some searching, you'll see all kinds of different pricings. Wiki gives this price range:

Red : 670nm : $10
Red : 650nm : $15
Red : 635nm : $ 40
Green : 532nm : $59
Yellow : 594nm : $200
Blue : 473mnm : $1000

The lasers on WL are all class IIIb, meaning they are higher than 5mW in power, so the prices are much higher as well.

I purchased the 55mW green (532nm) laser for $209.99 US (i got 5% taken off by using the discount code 3962) as well as a $199.99 Pulsar (100mW 650nm laser pointer)

here is a link to the gallery on WL http://wickedlasers.com/gallery.php

I'll post some of my own pictures tomorrow

First Post

I should have done this a long time ago. Anyways, this blog is here for me to express my love for lasers, particularly my addiction to high powered laser pointers.

I suppose i should give some basic information first.

Lasers are broken down into different classes based on their power. here are the classes of lasers we are concerned with

Class II: the lasers you find in laser mice

Class IIIa: anything from 1mW (dollar store laser toys) to 5mW (presentation pointers)

Class IIIb: anything from 5mW to 400mW

Wavelength is the next important factor, as some wavelengths of light are more visible to the human eye than others.

..This image shows the visible light spectrum, and how many nm (Nano-meters) the wavelength is. Red lasers will usually be around 630nm to 680nm

Green Lasers are always 532nm because of the methods used to create the green wavelength.

Yellow lasers are much rarer due to the complicated series of crystals used to modify the light's wavelength to produce the yellow beam.

Blue and Violet lasers are a reletively new invention, and therefor are quite costly. Recent usage of Blue lasers in burning CD's and DVD's will result in rapidly dropping prices.

Lasers with a wavelength of anywhere from 850nm to 1mm are Infrared. these lasers will not produce any visible beam or dot, and therefore can be quite dangerous because you will not realise if you are damaging your eye or not.

That's enough for today, i'll post some more tomorrow