# What is the minimum power needed too....



## Fried Chicken (Feb 19, 2006)

Pop a dark colored balloon?

Pop any balloon?

See the beam at night?

See the beam during daylight?

Melt electric tape?

Light a match?

Blind someone?

...with a green laser pointer?

I just think this could be a handy reference, especially for those of us who would like to know the power of our lasers, but don't have the equipment to do so.


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## Caustic (Feb 19, 2006)

Prepare to get flamed.:whoopin: 
If you talk about burning stuff with a laser on this form they
peg you as a irresponsible laser user. 

But I would have to say a good 95mW to do all those tricks.


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## Fried Chicken (Feb 19, 2006)

Caustic said:


> Prepare to get flamed.:whoopin:
> If you talk about burning stuff with a laser on this form they
> peg you as a irresponsible laser user.
> 
> But I would have to say a good 95mW to do all those tricks.


Well, it's not like I plan to do anything bad with a laser, but I read about what some people said in the modding post, and I thought, this is interesting. Some people mentioned that 30 mW is bad for the eyes, and others mentioned popping balloons, with just the stage 1 mod. So, this got me thinking what kind of power is needed.


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## Athoul (Feb 19, 2006)

Well it's not a post about burning things, but more an inquiry as to what can be done at certain output levels.

First I'll address the point posted that I believe is the most important. That is of blinding someone. Having worked with many lasers of various types and output over the years, my opinion is that and laser of *even 5mW* of higher has the potential to causes *permanent* eye damage. If you are refering to instant damage power levels, 35mW or higher can do that depending on where the beam strikes inside the eye. If this sounds scarey, I hope so because too many reports of misused lasers are turning up all over the place! Keep in mind that until DPSS green laser pointers became relatively cheap and were able to be modded, high output lasers were not really available to the general public. One thing that the general public lacks is a course on proper laser use theory and safety.

Now for the rest.

Pop a dark colored balloon: ~30-35+mW

Pop any Balloon: Many Watts are needed(for a green laser) to pop a white balloon. You will need an IR laser to pop a clear balloon.

See the beam at Night: ~2mW+(green), a 2mW green laser's beam can still be seen at night.

To see the beam in daylight: ~10Watts(green) to start to be able to see any beam in broad daylight, even then it will appear pretty faint.

Melt elecrtical tape: ~50mW+

Light a Match: ~70mW+ You can start to be able to light a match at around 70mW, this of course depends much on the type/brand of match used and it's composition. You will also need to color the match head black.

hope this helps you with your questions!  It should give you a rough idea of what can do what.


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## Fried Chicken (Feb 20, 2006)

*Quote above*
That's exactly the kind of information I wanted. Very nice post, well written.

Anyway, I have a question. If you have a laser that can pop a red balloon, say around 30 mW... If you were to shine that on your skin, would you be able to feel the heat? Would it cause damage? Or would you not feel anything?


You also mentioned that an IR laser would be needed to pop a clear balloon... Well, green laser pointers have an IR filter. Could that be taken out to get a hotter beam?

Thanks,
-Sam


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## Athoul (Feb 20, 2006)

Depending on your skin tone you might be able to feel the heat off of a 30mW laser. In my case it takes around 45-50mW before I can feel any warmth at all on my hand.

Though you would think removing the IR filter would add to the burning capability, as it is, it will not.

The lenses in the pointer(other then the one right infront of the pump diode) are all designed to collimate and focus visible light, thus the result from removing the filter would be a cone of IR added to the green collimated beam. This would be very bad to your eyes, but wouldn't go along way to add too the burning ability of the laser itself.

There are some specifically IR portable lasers available from various sellers/companies that do have a collimated beam.


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## Kiessling (Feb 20, 2006)

Caustic said:


> Prepare to get flamed.:whoopin:
> If you talk about burning stuff with a laser on this form they
> peg you as a irresponsible laser user.
> 
> But I would have to say a good 95mW to do all those tricks.




Caustic, you mit want to read our rules of conduct here and make yourself familiar with the laser forum in general to avoid such a post in the future as it is ... 
a) ... false
b) ... baiting

If you have a problem with some of our moderation rules being on the side of caution, common sense and following the law, then either be gone or contact a mod or admin privately in order to learn why this is the case.

bernhard


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## bootleg2go (Feb 20, 2006)

Fried Chicken said:


> Pop a dark colored balloon?
> 
> Pop any balloon?
> 
> ...



The ability to burn, melt or pop something is related not only to output power, but just as important as output power to what a laser can do is it's beam diameter/concentration(area). Output power/pi*r^2(area).
For instance a 200mW laser with a beam diameter of 1.5mm would give a concentration of 113mW/sq.mm. If the laser were only 100mW, but the beam diameter was only 1mm, then it's concentraion would be 127.3mW/sq mm; and it's melting, burning power would be even more than the 200mW with double the power.

bootleg2go


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## Athoul (Feb 20, 2006)

yep, you're correct. In my aproximations, I was assuming all lasers had the same beam waist and divergence. In this case about 1mm exiting the apperature and about a 1.2-15mRad as the divergence.


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