Laser Enthusiast Builds Super-Dangerous Homemade Pistol

[DTWolfwood]

whats its power source? thats damn cool. If he can get his theoretical 1MW pulse, we can see this as a real weapon :O

imagine sniping with a laser gun! no drop-off or lead necessary!

 

[manaman]

I finally got a look at the thing. It looks like some mash up of a reciprocating saw and a hair dryer.

 

[ThreeWords]

Add a noise, and fire a red light at the same time.
Scale up firepower
????
Profit

 

[Tortoiseloz]

First lasers then portals, muhahaha

Someone get me the cake!

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Mass Effect here we come!

 

[Thaluikhain]

Now, what kind of implications and ramifications can EMP warfare, which is progressing at a similar rate, have on a laser equipped military and what kind of collateral damage might result?

Very little, most likely. Building protection from EMPs is much, much easier than making EMP weapons.

Also, this is awesome. Imagine sniper rifles with something like this. Wind? No effect. Coriolis-effect? No effect.

Of course, if it's raining, you're screwed.

Wind and coriolis effect? C'mon, the much greater advantages would be having no effect due to gravity, no recoil and no worrying about the target moving in the time between firing and hitting. [small]Yes, strictly speaking not "no", but you know what I mean [/small]

Except, of course, you're still going to be killed when a homemade bomb goes off on the road you're driving past, despite all sorts of high tech gear.

 

[manaman]

The casing he has built looks nice, but really all he has done is taken a commercially available laser and fitted a shiny case and battery pack.

I wouldn't get too stoked about "lazor gunz pew pew" quite yet, there are a LOT of issues with taking something like this, which is effective over a few inches, and turning it into something "useful" that works over longer distances. Most notable is the power requirement which goes up at a staggering rate as you try and increase the distance. Beam dispersion, ionisation of the atmosphere in the beam, energy dissipation, power sourcing, optical resilience and overall reliability all need to be worked on too (to name a few).

Right now the best attempt I have seen was a US Army project to intercept incoming missiles. The power source was the size of a semi-trailer and the laser was in a separate semi trailer "next door" iirc.

A really interesting thing about lasers is their ability to burn a plasma channel through the air. A plasma channel actually has a property called negative resistance, in which an initial high voltage is required to form the electric spark can rapidly break down into a high current low voltage arc. The arc only needs to be hot enough to maintain the plasma channel, distance isn't a requirement.

We might not have laser weapons in the not to distance future but directed energy weapons in general look promising.

 

[Ponce Master-General]

If a hobbyist can make this, in his spare time, with fairly simple components, then why haven't we already got military grade laser weaponry already??

Perhaps we already do...

Who's we? My conspiracy sense is tingling...

 

[Fuselage]

Now, This is what Max Payne 3 should have this time around.
*PEW* *PEW*

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I think this deserves a song.

 

[Sporky111]

A dangerous toy is right, that looks like something straight out of a sci-fi show. With or without the covering. Damn . . .

I wonder how long it is before we hear news of robberies with laser guns. That would be weird.

 

[The3rdEye]

Now, what kind of implications and ramifications can EMP warfare, which is progressing at a similar rate, have on a laser equipped military and what kind of collateral damage might result?

Very little, most likely. Building protection from EMPs is much, much easier than making EMP weapons.

Maybe you're right, but at the same time when the federal commission to assess the threat of EMP attacks upon the US says "The ability to recover from this situation is an area of great concern" in regards to the recovery from an emp strike, I think there's grounds to take a pause. Sure our military hardware will upgrade with EMP countermeasures along with the lasers themselves, but even now the military and government countermeasures sound to be lacking, to say nothing of the public sector. Of course this is all speculative based on casual 'research', but that's what makes it fun.

 

[JohnGD117]

I want one. But I don't know what I would do with it. Like, at all. Can't use it for self defense, can't shoot people for fun... It is too dangerous for fun and too not -dangerous for practicality.

 

[Olorune]

Need two. Now.

 

[Okysho]

If a hobbyist can make this, in his spare time, with fairly simple components, then why haven't we already got military grade laser weaponry already??

Perhaps we already do...

http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm#_blank

The future is here

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

So, why doesn't the worlds militaries, use lasers again?

Seriously.

Last time I checked, the entire reason of why we don't have lightsabers and plasma guns was that of powering the weapon while keeping it compact and portable, not so much as actually shaping it into blasts or swords.

This seems to solve it.

 

[lightningmagurn]

If a hobbyist can make this, in his spare time, with fairly simple components, then why haven't we already got military grade laser weaponry already??

The Geneva convention forbids it, actually. I think. Something does.

 

[twaddle]

now we need proper taser knuckles, a mega buster, and a death star laser to be invented

 

[aashell13]

i wonder why he went with an infrared laser, and not one with a shorter wavelength like blue or violet, given that power increases approximately as the inverse of wavelength if all else is equal.

 

[Jamous]

....O_O








*goes for wallet. NOW.*