Laser Cigarette Lighter Makes Smoking Even More Dangerous

Dangers involved with using this laser cigarette lighter to start off your smoking session include shooting your eyes out and giving yourself a mean Harry Potter style forehead scar. This thing boasts a two Watt laser diode which has no problem burning everything that comes in contact with it.

[Masterjoa3000] shows you how it was built in the video after the break. You need to acquire the diode and support hardware which acts as a heat sink. These are press-fit together before wires are attached to the positive and negative leads. The housing is just a bit too wide for the wind shield on the lighter, but that is fixed by cutting a ‘V’ out of the center of that shielding. Next comes a minuscule driver board which is soldered to the diode and to a momentary push switch. The switch takes the place of the flint so that pressing down on the striking wheel activates the laser. The whole thing still fits in the unaltered outer case.

Here’s another take on the same idea with the laser pointing in a different direction.

64 thoughts on “Laser Cigarette Lighter Makes Smoking Even More Dangerous

  1. I think I’d hit up Edmund Optics for a plano-convex lens to go on the end of that thing. A 6mm lens for 405nm lasers goes for around $40 and he could pick whatever focal length he wants. That way, it’ll near focus (say 1″ or so) and then the W/m^2 would rapidly fall off after that.
    Safer that way– granted, not by much, but still.

  2. im thinking if you aimed it to a store or house window can you start a fire that way.
    if you can start a fire you can never dentify the cause
    smoking can kill
    but lighting can make you blind

        1. Yes he is being serious I’m sure. Supply frame most likely has deeper pockets that the (anonymous) builder, Google/youtube deeper yet. In the event the builder inserted warnings concerning the laser in the video I missed them, but however was concerned that the viewer is cautious about the battery and how it’s treated. No mention of the hazard in the video’s about box. either. The insurance industry has deepest pockets of all, and are the driving force behind most if not all safety regulation.

      1. America – Fuck yeah….
        Land of the free(rofl), land of the brave(who?).

        Forget about the lawyer-bullshit and safety-fanatism.
        If you are just so afraid of some guys building nice tools,
        then go an burry yourself under kilometers of conrete – there are you safe and we have our peace.
        And if something gona happen, so what….
        this world need a lot more Darwinism,
        not more rules

      2. This is a hack, expect no safety, or warranty. let Darwinism take its course.
        Seriously if we are not allowed to share someones lighter hack then what freedom do we have. Don’t like it? Don’t build it. Go live somewhere where you can’t run with (metal) scissors.

        1. I’m all for Darwinism, unfortunately with stupid laser builds (like this one), it’s the innocent bystander that will pay with their vision for the builders carelessness.

          The comments that basically say “tough shit” makes me wonder how many budding sociopaths read this site. Their complete lack of social consciousness is both scary and pathetic.

          If they think a portable, camouflaged, high power laser is NOT dangerous to the public in general, they’re dumber then they sound in their “look at me, I’m a bad ass” posts.

  3. why not making a small enclosure to deflect the laser forming an arc, then you could simply put the cigarette tip inside the enclosure and it’d be much safer.
    If you use 2 mirrors in the right angle you can deflect back inside the lighter and use the heat to recharge the battery, that’d be even cooler (although much harder to fit in the lighter’s enclosure).

    1. I think even if you manage to fit, say, a small enough peltier device (to convert heat to electricity) it wouldn’t actually charge the battery that much to put the trouble fitting it there in the first place. Great idea with the mirrors to reflect the beam back to the lighter though, but what fun would it be not being able to use it with something else than lighting a cigarette?

      1. Not much I guess, it would be limited to that specific use, but it’s much safer.
        You could make it a removable piece with the mirrors, that would allow for other uses in case of emergency.
        The peltier wouldn’t get much energy back to the battery, that’s true, but if would help channeling heat into something instead of overheating the lighter case and burning your hand while holding it.

      2. I have made peltier elements before, and so far the smallest one I have made was around 5mm^3 You can get one small enough. It would be sooo far from worth the effort it is ridiculous. A 2 W laser, after using optical quality mirrors (so lets say 10% loss per mirror, so 20%) also, a very well setup peltier element is about 10% efficient if not less. So… you would under pretty much ideal conditions would only get 0.16W of “recharge” ability out of it. You would be much much better off using the extra space putting in a bigger battery.

        As for dissapating the heat, you could just use a small piece of ceramic, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about anything as it would absorb all the light, and there would be very little to no heat transfer to the surrounding enclosure.

        1. I like the ceramic instead of the peltier element.
          Shut up and take my money !!
          hahahaha…. I can’t help but wonder who would buy this at a 200 USD pricepoint (based on components) but what the heck, you can always start a kickstarter (I am all for it)

    1. Again, this guy is crazy. The protection glasses are clearly not rated for 2W laser operation. At the end of the video you can see that *even with the protection glasses put in the camera*, the speckle reflections seem as strong as lighting magnesium up, for example. This guy is doing no different than welding without safety glasses, or directly starring the sun.

    2. Wow, that music really sucks.

      I’d hope those lasers come with really big, obvious warnings. Unfortunately, I think as a side-effect of the safety nazis and parasite lawyers’ activites, everything has safety warnings on it nowadays, for corporate arse-covering, not to actually usefully warn people. So people tend to ignore them like that idiot kid who kept crying wolf. Ironically this makes us less safe, cos people have to use their own judgement and ignore warnings half of the time just to get things done. Knowing which ones to follow is a mystery unless you already know what you’re doing.

  4. I think this is just insanely stupid. No sympathy for anyone blinding themselves with this thing. On top of that, it is very dangerous to the eyesight of everyone around. I hope someone will take it away from you in the very near future, for your own good.

      1. Masterjoa3000, can you share the power rating of your safety glasses? I’m pretty sure they are not rated for the laser class you are operating.
        Trust me, I work with scientific grade lasers everyday.

      1. “.. not like he’s shining it around a room full of people with unprotected eyes.”

        And you know that how? There’s no need to build it in a lighter unless he wants it portable enough to take everywhere.

  5. Most likely there aren’t any hobbyists building lasers at home the old fashioned way. Even at the they too used off the shelf components to some degree, so some will still have something to bellyache about ;)

  6. remember the firmware bug in the pioneer a04 dvd burner? that was where the 2x media would cause the laser to be turned on and left on at full power and would ruin the media and the drive.

    if that bug came to a blu ray burner it would be worse.

    1. turn the media into a plastic donut.

    2. burn a hole through the top cover of the drive.

    3a. burn a hole through the enclosure (if external)

    3b. burn a hole through the drive bracket top (if internal).

    3c. burn a hole through the outer cover of the pc (if internal).

    4. burn a hole in your ceiling and all the way through your house and maybe set fire to the house.

  7. Please please please stop encouraging this kind of laser abuse. It’s extremely immature and fosters bad practices. The fact that you are even joking about its potential ramifications here is evidence enough, however, that you don’t give a flying @$%# anyway.

    1. Yeah, it gets pretty annoying around here with idiots aiming green lasers to everything that moves. One can’t even peacefully enjoy the beach at night with friends anymore, there has to be always a moron aiming lasers into your eyeballs.
      I guess its time to start going to the beach wearing laser safety glasses.

      1. Where exactly did you read that I wanted to ban lasers? You just sound like a stupid American trying to bring the subject of legal status of personal guns into had, when the article topic is not even related. Yes, a laser can be and is actually being used as military weapon, though it has nothing to do with handguns.

        My post is describing a factual example, where, people do not correctly handle lasers and are probably unaware that the negative effects of laser radiation in the eyes is only noticeable in the long-term.

        Next time, do actually read my post before posting idiotic stuff.

        PS: Not sure why you people love so much the example of the zip gun. I can just as well build a deadlier weapon than is actually easier to build – ever heard of a blowgun with delivery darts? Now put it together with some toxic compound (Ricin is the most obvious) from a natural source and let me know how that compares to your ridiculous zipgun.

  8. The rapidly falling price of extremely high power lasers is going to cause a lot of trouble when more and more people get access to them. High power lasers are not to be messed around with. This is a terribly dangerous project.

  9. Quick unrelated novice laser question: If I had two 1 watt lasers focused on a single point, would that be the same intensity as a 2 watt laser? Or does the output not scale the same way?

    1. It does, however the price of the optics required to do so outweighs the investment in a more powerful laser, not to mention that setting up the optics would be a great pain in the ass…
      Also, unless all the lasers were single-mode, the focused spot suffer from all kinds of interference patterns.

  10. I love lasers but I’ve resisted playing with high power ones due to the fact that I really want to keep my (not so brilliant already) eyesight.
    I saw a show about cracking down on rogue traders and someone had a huge amount of green lasers and boxes and boxes of parts to build more, they were selling them on eBay as low power ones but being homemade with the parts sourced from China the rating on the stickers were completely unreliable as all the confiscated ones that were tested were far above the UK legal limits.
    They even interviewed a school kid who has retina damage from some other dumbass school kid who shone a green laser in his eye (held it right up close) and now has a dark patch where the laser permanently destroyed his retina.The photo the eye doctor took of his retina clearly showed the damaged patch.

    Please, HaD, no more high power laser hacks, there are already enough idiots out there, we don’t want to encourage them to ruin people’s eyesights and lives.

  11. Exactly why do we keep seeing criminally stupid “trolls” that are using nothing more than a bunch off-the-shelf complaints in various threads, doing nothing more than pissing people off?!?

  12. Listen, Alex Jones… there is a difference between people screaming to make it illegal to hack, experiment, and explore electronics and people that are genuinely concerned about someone losing their vision due to some idiot that thought he’d like to show one of these off at a party with a lot of people around who don’t have eye protection. Freedom is great. But this is the visual equivalent of playing with a gun in the middle of a crowded room while drunk. No, we don’t want a nanny state like the UK, but I would genuinely fear being in the room with someone with one of these if I didn’t think he was an expert with lasers. The reflection off of a PAINTED WALL can cause permanent damage at these power levels.

    1. Listen up everybody… Mark the Authoritarian has spoken!
      He thinks he is the only responsible person alive on Earth.
      He feels we are too stupid to see the obvious, and feels the need to school us.
      Self-appointed head of the Nanny State speaks. We all must obey his command.
      Bile to him when spoken to. (or is it bowel?)

      Stifle knowledge.
      Shut down the internet – Burn all the books.
      Freedom is great. Therefore it must come to an end.

      Build more prisons –
      fill them with people exercising their Constitutional Rights.
      No more free and open discussions.
      Close off the fenced-in Free Speech Zones.

      Return to your cage when the curfew siren sounds.
      Come out only to work, consume, and worship his hind-end.

      Censorship is the new mantra.
      Report all suspicious activities. See something – Say something.
      Be a good little Nazi and tattle on your neighbor,
      for all their thoughts and actions must not go unpunished.

      People with a god complex mindset are a far greater danger to society
      than some kid retrofitting a cigarette lighter with a laser pointer.

      Funny you show no concern over his apparent smoking habit and fire starting skills. Statistically, the kid will eventually get lung cancer. In turn, we all will have a significantly greater chance of having the rise in cost of health insurance directly affecting us, more so than the off-chance a reflected beam of light somehow finding a path to the relatively small surface area of an eyeball to partially, or permanently, impair one’s vision. Never mind how entire communities suffer any time a structure burns to the ground.

      Please, please, please, please, stop already with all the sanctimonious complaints about encouraging laser abuse. LOL! I don’t see ya’ll bitching about the schemes detailing how to drain someone’s bank account, or gain access to their computer or cellphone. Somehow that sits well with you? Gimme a break.

      The comparison between a laser pointer and a gun is a weak argument at best, and feeds into your irresistible compulsion to exercise control over others; while helping to usher in a totalitarian regime with all the makings of a dictatorship.

      Strange how all Americans have become the terrorists, while the U.S. government supplies weapons to al Qaeda in Syria? Being molested at the airport has become a common occurrence, while the NSA taps our phone conversations telling us it is all in the name of national security. Since when has it become an act of treason to expose the criminal elements in government?

      Quite frankly, I am more worried about the militarization of our peace officers who now sport weapons with -of all things- laser pointers. Funny, isn’t it?! The ammunition that exits the barrel of their new-found toys have a tendency to follow the path of that directed beam of light. What if IT finds any surface of your body? The thing to be worried about is surviving such an encounter, which by the way is occurring with rapidly increasing frequency.

  13. Might have been a bit safer to use a 12W visible incoherent diode on a short duty cycle, at least the reflections from these aren’t quite as harmful as a laser.
    IIRC people have lit matches and suchlike before, so its somewhat feasible.

    445nm light may be “less visible” but just as infrared can damage the eye so can near UV.

  14. Hey Masterjoa3000, I’d really like to see the schematics for this build! (Yes, all safety measures will be applied!!) I’m working on building my own laser etcher and this would be an excellent fit for it!
    (You guys are a mess! lol )

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