Tornado Lamp Made With Lasers

[Styropyro] did a great job of taking common parts and making an interesting item. He calls this his Tornado lamp, and it’s made with stuff you probably have around the house — well you might have to substitute more common glassware for that Erlenmeyer flask.

The bulk of the hack is in the base. You’ll find a laser diode pointed at a small scrap of mirror. That mirror is mounted on the center of a small case fan, giving the tornadic effect when spinning. To make everything fit just right, the laser is pointed horizontally, with the fan/mirror at a 45 degree angle. The beam points up through a hole in the project box and illuminates the liquid in the flask. That liquid is water doped with a substance that fluoresces. In this shot it’s some fluorescein, but we did mention you can do this with stuff from around the house. [Styropyro] demonstrates the use of liqud from some highlighting markers as a substitute.

If you’re decoration a mad scientist’s lab this is a perfect companion for a Jacob’s ladder.

9 thoughts on “Tornado Lamp Made With Lasers

  1. Why waste all that time gutting markers or dropping cash on flourescien when some extremely cheap tonic water will give you that exciting Nuka-Cola glow?

  2. I suspect the cool swirling effect is an artifact of the frame rate of the camera and the rotating beam.
    Then, however, a simple (and quiet) lens that spreads the beam will produce nearly the same effect as the spinning mirror.

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