Laser beam modding

posted May 14th 2007 11:28pm by Will O'Brien
filed under: laser hacks

The laser community forums have a nice primer on basic laser effects. [Steve] thought I’d really be interested in this sweet prototype dual laser saber. It’s a custom piece that uses a wicked laser pointer (You can use any laser, but those happen to be damn powerful) and a polycarbonate blade(tube/rod) to create the hallowed light saber effect. (Now I know what I want for christmas.) Mcmaster-carr carries polycarbonate rod and tube if you want to make your own,

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Comments [5]

5 Responses to Laser beam modding

Wolf says:

May 15, 2007 at 7:00 am

I wonder how he acheived the extending and retracting effects with a laser?

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lonasindi says:

May 15, 2007 at 4:41 pm

#1 the effect seems to be based on a mirrored magnet that moves in the tube

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ben dash says:

May 15, 2007 at 10:39 pm

@wolf – I believe that I read something about a sliding magnetic reflector that I assume is inside the light tube.

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smilr says:

May 16, 2007 at 12:52 am

by watching the video it appears some sort of reflector slides down the tube when you tilt the saber so that the blade tip is below the handle. An electromagnet then holds the reflector at the tip until switched off.

My question is why couldn’t a small supply of pressurized air be used to move the reflector _up_ the saber to the holding magnet – allowing one to have the saber do a star-wars style activation while upright?

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CyberZeroCool says:

May 23, 2007 at 12:13 am

this is the best video there, Amazing!
http://www.skyfirelasers.com/boomdog/videos/spirograph.wmv

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