(no subject)
After an incredibly long wait, my laser finally showed up yesterday.
After charging for several hours, I stupidly brought it to work, at which point we used it to melt holes in the black wire mesh backs of our conference room chairs, and burn diagonal strips down the googley-eyed faces of stuffed animals.
The beam is so bright that it's visible in daylight, and at night it's essentially a thin solid bar of light. The dot on the target, if shone at a light-colored surface like a white wall, is too bright to look at for long and leaves after-images for a few minutes when you blink.
Letting the tip of my finger even lightly brush the edge of the beam for a second, as a test, felt like touching an electric stove, and continued to sting for several hours.
The beam is so hot and so narrow, it's not very effective at setting anything on fire. It tends to simply char and/or melt anything it's held on instead. For example, shining it at a dried leaf does not make the leaf catch fire, but rather burns a still-smoldering hole through it so quickly, it doesn't have a chance to ignite. The darker the object, the more energy absorption, and the better the burn. It's easy to melt thick black plastic -- surprisingly hard to burn white paper.
Long story short, it's an incredibly dangerous toy. Having the beam brush your eye, even off an accidentally reflective surface like a window, is instantly and permanently blinding, so you need to wear the included safety goggles at all times. This makes it difficult to show off to friends or use outside without putting them or your neighborhood at risk, as the beam has an estimated range of 60-100 miles. (Well past the horizon.)
It's not very effective as a potential weapon. Unlike a commercial laser pointer, which turns on and off with a button press, this laser has a complex, built-in locking mechanism required by law. You need to push a button on the end cap, and then enter a fairly complex sequence of short and long button presses halfway up the "hilt" to get it to even activate. At that point, it's on, but only at 10% power. You need to enter another button code to get it to 100%.
And once it's on, it's ON. The only way to shut it off is to deactivate it entirely, requiring the entire sequence again. This is a problem. It makes it very unwieldy because you can't even aim it somewhere "safe" for awhile. If you aim it down at your carpet instead of turning it off, you'll burn your carpet.
Have to admit, the laser housing is a pretty cool design. I estimate about 9-10" long. Seems to be made out of a high-grade iodized aluminum or steel, so it has pretty decent heft.
Honestly, the thing has no usefulness whatsoever. It's too powerful for a laser pointer, too dangerous as a demo toy, too concentrated to ignite things, and too unwieldy as a weapon.
It's just incredibly cool. That's about it.
After charging for several hours, I stupidly brought it to work, at which point we used it to melt holes in the black wire mesh backs of our conference room chairs, and burn diagonal strips down the googley-eyed faces of stuffed animals.
The beam is so bright that it's visible in daylight, and at night it's essentially a thin solid bar of light. The dot on the target, if shone at a light-colored surface like a white wall, is too bright to look at for long and leaves after-images for a few minutes when you blink.
Letting the tip of my finger even lightly brush the edge of the beam for a second, as a test, felt like touching an electric stove, and continued to sting for several hours.
The beam is so hot and so narrow, it's not very effective at setting anything on fire. It tends to simply char and/or melt anything it's held on instead. For example, shining it at a dried leaf does not make the leaf catch fire, but rather burns a still-smoldering hole through it so quickly, it doesn't have a chance to ignite. The darker the object, the more energy absorption, and the better the burn. It's easy to melt thick black plastic -- surprisingly hard to burn white paper.
Long story short, it's an incredibly dangerous toy. Having the beam brush your eye, even off an accidentally reflective surface like a window, is instantly and permanently blinding, so you need to wear the included safety goggles at all times. This makes it difficult to show off to friends or use outside without putting them or your neighborhood at risk, as the beam has an estimated range of 60-100 miles. (Well past the horizon.)
Click to viewIt's not very effective as a potential weapon. Unlike a commercial laser pointer, which turns on and off with a button press, this laser has a complex, built-in locking mechanism required by law. You need to push a button on the end cap, and then enter a fairly complex sequence of short and long button presses halfway up the "hilt" to get it to even activate. At that point, it's on, but only at 10% power. You need to enter another button code to get it to 100%.
And once it's on, it's ON. The only way to shut it off is to deactivate it entirely, requiring the entire sequence again. This is a problem. It makes it very unwieldy because you can't even aim it somewhere "safe" for awhile. If you aim it down at your carpet instead of turning it off, you'll burn your carpet.
Have to admit, the laser housing is a pretty cool design. I estimate about 9-10" long. Seems to be made out of a high-grade iodized aluminum or steel, so it has pretty decent heft.
Honestly, the thing has no usefulness whatsoever. It's too powerful for a laser pointer, too dangerous as a demo toy, too concentrated to ignite things, and too unwieldy as a weapon.
It's just incredibly cool. That's about it.