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What Could You Do With 120 Laser Pointers?
lazed-dazed asks: "I've recently come into possession of a large number (120 of 'em) of keychain laser pointers (minus the fancy diffraction adapters, though the specs are the same). So, Slashdot, I ask you: Can you give me any project ideas for these low-wattage bad boys? Holograms? Fancy cigarette lighters? Laser cannons? The crazier, the better! Oh, and don't bother suggesting cat toys."
Form the lasers into a grid say 15x8 or 17x7 and set them in some plastic let say ... polyethene resin. And rig them up with a hand held computer and (hand waving) a couple of relays.
You will then be able to project messages on the people, walls, cars. Insert funny messages here...
I don't think so. Even if they were putting out the maximum 5mW of power (which they're not) that's still only 0.6 Watts. The smallest and weakest soldering irons out there are probably at least 10 to 20 times that much power, and they'd have a tough time melting anything but very small pads.
And, even more importantly, it's not going to be very focused. If you look at the spot a laser pointer makes it's more of a blob, the optics on these things are NOT meant to be very accurate. Plus, with 120 of them, there's almost zero chance that they'd all be aimed at exactly the same spot. In order for cutting lasers to be useful they have to be highly focused and concentrated in a very small spot, much like the whole magnifying-glass-starts-fires trick thing.
I think you'd have a better chance of getting something to light by rubbing sticks together.
Take out security cameras in a good chunk of downtown London....
Laser pointers nicely mess up video camera... It probably won't hurt the camera, but here is a fun read if you have a bit of time on your hands.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Hell, attach mirrors to the speaker cone and point them at that from different angles. Play music through the speaker and instant light show!
This sig intentionally left justified.
Attach about 30 of them to two gloves, and go dancing.
Attach an AC adapter and mount a row of them above the front door, aiming down.
Give them away at a local school. The teachers would love that.
Drill holes into a thick wooden board, mounting the pointers upwards under a sheet of transparent plastic or glass. Sacrifice an audio LED controller or two to synchronize the beams to music. Learn to dance.
Attach them all to a single trigger, and mount them together with a large amount of tape. Keep in your glovebox. When someone cuts you off, aim at their rear-view mirror.
Build your own really inefficient 3D scanner.
Can you say, Flash Mob?
The ______ Agenda
Put them all in a frame, each pointing at a phototransistor, and link to a frequency generator or microcontroller with MIDI output. Now you have a laser harp.
In fact, here's a very informative website on the subject: The 250 laser harp project. Includes links to different projects, schematics, part sources, etc.
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