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Turn a flashnight into a handheld burning laser!

lifehacker.com — DIYer Kipkay extracts the laser from a DVD burner and mounts it in a small flashlight to create a handheld laser burner that can light matches and burst balloons.

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  • oojamaflip2006, on 10/10/2007, -3/+123Cool but wildly dangerous for peoples eyes. Not for nothing are CD lasers marked with gigantic yellow warning stickers saying 'do not disassemble' etc.; you can seriously ***** up your eyes or those of your pets o_x------'==
    • Sartori, on 10/10/2007, -0/+68As the old warning says: "Do not look into laser with remaining eye."
    • danep, on 10/10/2007, -0/+41Indeed, even the light accidentally reflected off of a metallic object and back at your eye could cause PERMANENT blindness in a matter of microseconds. Needless to say, blinking won't help at that point.
      • EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -0/+17Yep, which is the reason I am not going to make one. :(

        I have a low powered laser here and I have accidently directed it straight at my eyes enough times already with the help of a few somewhat reflective windows and mirrors. :(
      • Rinnt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Right, even in the video when he shines the laser on the dark colored balloon you see reflected lasers.
    • pantysniffer, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11Dugg for the ASCII image !!!
    • SillyRabbits, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12For lasers this powerful you don't even need to reflect the beam directly at the eye to cause damage. The diffuse reflection from just the wall (e.g. just looking at the bright spot it makes on the wall) can be damaging to the eye.
    • nazsco, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1i would thumb up for the ascii, and down for the lame warning... so let's just call it even.
      • satx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Yeah, what a lame warning... I mean who needs their eyes, right?
  • paranoidbrick, on 10/22/2007, -10/+204Get the Light Fluffy
    Get it
    come on boy you can do it



    Mom we need to go to the vet
  • NetLogic, on 10/10/2007, -4/+36http://digg.com/videos/educational/DVD_Laser_Flashlight_Hack_245mw
    • GoldYoshi, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3Well, some of us DON'T check the video section.
    • startrek, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Since videos in the video section have been split so there is no possibility of those showing up on Digg's homepage there will most likely be duplicates into the news section.
      Now, you can go ahead and move on to the next story after marking this as a dupe, quietly, e.g. not commenting that it is a dupe.
  • DeathtoG4, on 10/10/2007, -8/+39I guess the Dupe police are still asleep....
    • nodonoug, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13asleep? This is digg. They're dead and rotting.
    • arcooke, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12It's pointless to report dupes anymore.. if you do, you get buried.
      • arjie, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4For obvious reasons. If you were just concerned that it was a dupe you'd just "Bury as Duplicate Story". However, you feel like commenting here that it's a duplicate, possibly with the sole intention of saying that you've seen it before. Congratulations! Now go away, some of us haven't seen this.
      • NiX0n, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I for one am sick of seeing videos in the news section.
        Buried for "Wrong Topic"
  • DjDimitrious, on 10/10/2007, -3/+84As posted over on /. a couple hours ago... This is *extremely* dangerous. If even reflected light makes its way into your eye, you can expect to be blinded permanently.
    • skabyss, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Sweet, good thing I'm already half blind

      ...Oh wait
      • WavyLayz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8It took a second, but that was actually really funny.
    • Nidis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5But you can pop balloons
    • OwdenBowden, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Making on for my wife to carry when she goes to work. Making another so that I can juice it up enough to cut the arm off of anyone that had the death sentence in 5 systems
  • rowlodge, on 10/10/2007, -18/+3always wanted one of those when i was a kid, burn some girls but from far away at school.
  • LeeJunFan, on 10/10/2007, -8/+9I'm wondering how much voltage the diode will take, I'm thinking of putting one in my surefire [6V] for my AR-15, officially making me the first person in town with a laser gun :)
    • Radian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Expect a knock on your door from Chertoff & friends in 5...4...3...2... oh he's early.
    • blackwinged, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5... one step further to be an evil overlord - mwhahahaha
    • TacticalPenguin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3You can get a forward mounted vertical grip with Crimson Trace Lasergrips on it for a rail system, you would only be the first person to have a laser that can blind people in a realistic amount of time.
    • Muyoso, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I was thinking about this for a firearms application as well. Since the very high powered lasers are very expensive, especially the ones that attack to firearms. Would really like to see how stable we could make one of these.
  • worms83, on 10/22/2007, -9/+168wtf is a flashnight?
    • ukblacknight, on 10/10/2007, -24/+1a flashlight AKA a torch
    • marcusbrutus, on 10/10/2007, -23/+1A torch
    • ukblacknight, on 10/10/2007, -17/+2I think its actually meant to say flashlight, just noticed the typo now....
      • marcusbrutus, on 10/10/2007, -7/+1Me too, I don't understand why we were dugg down.
        • ukblacknight, on 10/10/2007, -7/+0Yeah, what the hell's with that! The OP didn't get dugg down?
        • cococooky, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0spelling Nazis, they have no sympathy for those of us with dyslexia.:(
      • Anthracene, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Ukblacklight I only noticed it after this was noted so you all are not alone...
    • EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -3/+23The reason you're being dugg down is because everyone already knows what it was supposed to be.
      • ukblacknight, on 10/10/2007, -4/+7Maybe the reader can't understand English very well and got confused? We're not all from English speaking countries. Just being helpfull..sheesh.
        • GiggleStick, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12That's helpful with only one L. ;-)
        • Anthracene, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I think ukblacklight knows that GiggleStick.
    • wassim2k, on 10/22/2007, -0/+43It projects darkness during the day - the opposite of flashlight.
      • Cint, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5I already have one of those, it's called... anything opaque.
        • gh0st3000, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2there's a difference between opaque things and a device that obliterates light in a space in front of it. Now that I think of it, that would be a pretty sweet thing to have... if it made sense.
          • mtheoryx83, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Yeah, I think I have one of those. It's definitely called anything opaque, and the projected darkness is called...a shadow.
          • nazsco, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This thread is starting to have a shadow of it's own.
  • turbopro, on 10/10/2007, -3/+22http://www.instructables.com/id/EWM4YR2F4WY1LQ2/

    picture by picture guide for building this.
    • Anthracene, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Oh hell, this is a choice....I do not want to have. Everyone hide your eyes...AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
  • onetimer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+42It's all fun and games until you briefly accidentally flash this over someones eyes and burn out their corneas. Seriously, a friend of mine has lasers similar to this (http://www.megalaser.com/) and makes us put on heavy duty eye goggles before he turns them on, cause even the reflection can ***** you up
  • dupswapdrop, on 10/10/2007, -9/+4Can I use this to counter those cop speed gun lazers?
    • LeeJunFan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+20Sure - if you blind the cops they can't chase you. :p
    • EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Ya, don't worry about the tiny speeding fine then, just the multi million $ lawsuite when they view the camera for evidence.
    • nodonoug, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Only if you have really good aim and hit the cop right in the eyes so he can't read your speed.

      If you want to mess up a cop's laser gun, you need to figure out the exact frequency that they're transmitting at, and apply a doppler shift corresponding to the reduction in speed you want (i.e. if you're travelling 80 in a 50, you need the doppler shift that a car travelling AWAY at 30mph would generate). Then transmit your shifted pulse. The speed of your car will cause a doppler shift, which hopefully you've offset enough to register the speed you want the cop to see. Downside, he'll still see the reflection from his transmission, but hopefully you can convince the radar gun to report the slower speed with a larger signal strength.

      Alternatively, you can try to transmit the reflection 180 degrees out of phase so that nothing registers.

      Either way, it's a VERY difficult problem to solve and unless you work for the companies making these speed guns, you're probably not gonna solve this with a DIY project.
      • raynar, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10OR

        slow the ***** down.
        • oldhick, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16Are you kidding? Who the hell wants to slow down when you can build some doppler shift pulse thing... Almost as cool as sharks with frickin' laser beams
      • darlyn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Mythbusters, anyone?
      • bradleyland, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You're right that calculating the appropriate shift is difficult, but the solution is much simpler.

        If you emit enough light of the correct frequency, the LADAR's job becomes much harder. Imagine someone is flashing a flashlight at you. Now imagine that behind that person is a set of six, 1 million candle power spotlights pointed your direction. You'll never see the flashlight because of the overwhelming backlight. All you have to do is emit a sufficiently bright source of light on the same wavelength as to eliminate the LADAR's ability to discern the reflection of its own pulses.
    • scooterMX, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1you can't transmit a shifted pulse to confuse most modern (post 1990) laser speed guns. They use pwm and burst frequencies to prevent this kind of thing. (it's not straight doppler) They shoot a couple of frequencies, mix the reflections, and are able to separate things like trees or hubcap spinners.. Though broadband pulsed laser is more effective, pretty much adds noise so their detection circuitry gets confused.

      But I think the ticket for jamming is a lot more than for speeding.
  • sdpdt, on 10/10/2007, -15/+9This is safe if you're not a jackass. Just be smart.
    • monarch00, on 10/10/2007, -0/+27You're asking an awful lot from the general population. You must be an idealist...
    • LogicBomB, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12It's not unreasonable for a person to overlook reflections as a possible problem. Unless you have the right kind of glasses you simply should not opperate a laser of this magnitude.
  • Piedramente, on 10/10/2007, -1/+47Caution: This laser WILL blind you if you look into it.
  • HA5TY, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11This guy is the only reason I ever go to metacafe. He has a lot of cool videos.
  • turbopro, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2http://www.instructables.com/id/EWM4YR2F4WY1LQ2/

    Pic by pic guide for building this.
  • lodleader, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4wow good re-post of something that was on digg a day ago...
  • xiambax, on 10/10/2007, -9/+5flashnight? sounds like some sweet 70's bad ass cop show staring samuel jackson.
  • cintek, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1Old, OLD news.
    • antifreze, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4You post a comment to show "This is old; I have seen this, which makes me better than anyone else who hasn't yet"

      who the ***** cares, not everyone has seen everything on the internet.
      • CielChocobo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0And if you've already seen it, just move along.. unless it gets out of hand like the iPhone did
  • Waterproof, on 10/10/2007, -3/+20This ***** is extremely dangerous, but awesome
  • russianmike, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13Whatever happened to the classic magnifying glass.. This is it. Ants have no chance, its over.
    • dougmc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The classic magnifying glass, especially a big frensel lens, is way way better at frying ants than this laser. This laser might do one ant at a time. A 1 meter square frensel lens could cook an entire ant mound in minutes, squeezing about 1 kW of sun power into a few square centimeters ... fun times! (Of course, that still won't kill the ants deep underground.)

      In any event, the ants will win. But only because they have vastly greater numbers and can hide underground.
      • TRScheel, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Well then, I suppose its time to pull out the dry ice bombs. That'll do the trick.

        And make a damn good show in the process!
      • MonkCanatella, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Man, where did your parents go wrong?
        • dougmc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Anchorage, Alaska mostly.

          But they finally came around to see things ... my way. When my ant armies and I take over the world, my parents will among those who will be given positions of power in the new world order. True, there was some friction in the beginning, but they now understand their position.
  • deadlikeoscar, on 10/10/2007, -3/+38At what point did submitting a story about turning a flashlight into an extremely dangerous laser sound like a good idea? This is Digg for crying out loud--people will try this. Guess I better filter out all of the upcoming "Digg made me blind" stories. Somehow I don't think that their spelling will suffer much.
    • OrangeCrush, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5No need to worry about "Digg made me blind" stories for at least a month or two. It takes a while to learn to read braile.
      • JCSaint, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Please, it's all "muscle memory" for these guys. They can submit in their sleep.
        • gbro, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Its hard to complete the project when you've burned off your hands at the soldering stage.
  • altered, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Check out the comments of all the people who're going to attempt this mod.

    Lot of people getting their retinas seared tonight!
    • Anthracene, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Will they be able to post them?
    • mtheoryx83, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yeah, then they'll be pushing hard for screen readers and web accessibility.
  • ozid, on 10/10/2007, -0/+30I can't wait until I get blinded by one of my friends hours from now.
    • Anthracene, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5You have some idiot friends no offense.
    • MonkCanatella, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8I can't wait either, maybe you'll stop posting.
      • skyfire1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Braill keyboard + Windows Accessibility Options FTW!
  • capran, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10I smell a lawsuit in that one!
    • pantysniffer, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5i smell also also a burned retina
  • ronaldinho, on 10/10/2007, -11/+3time to impress the ladies

    I wonder if laser can make someone's balls explode
  • shadowspawn, on 10/10/2007, -5/+6there was an article about this before. can you imagine some numbnut who points this at a gas station hose from a distance?
    • J3Holaday, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Those hoses are really thick. I get your point though. I would be more worried if the aimed it at a puddle of gas.
    • dougmc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I certainly can. Nothing would happen.

      It's a nice powerful laser, yes -- but would need to be hundreds of times stronger to actually burn through a gas pump line.
  • MrsButtersworth, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1Dupe from the video section, where it belongs.
  • 9a3eedi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9dugg, but I wont check it out for fear of my eyes -_- .. This could potentially be used as a weapon now that I think about it...
    • EntangledPhysx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2You can use a pencil as a weapon... whats your point?
  • hangtown2004, on 10/10/2007, -4/+5Oh Goody Just one more thing for flemwads to use against people to hurt them
    • nihilite, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2actually, i think it is phlegmwad. but, agreed.
  • GetShorty, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Why is blogspam acceptable if it comes from a bigger blog like LifeHacker?

    Source: http://www.instructables.com/id/EWM4YR2F4WY1LQ2/
  • kopacetic, on 10/10/2007, -3/+24This has got to be the dumbest thing I have seen on the internet.. today. It's irresponsible.
    So lets sum this up. You can either:

    Option A)
    Light a matchstick remotely. (Can't really say I've ever had the need to.)
    Pop a balloon .. remotely. (As above.)

    Option B)
    or blind yourself severely impairing you life from that point onwards. Note that this can be done directly or indirectly and may take a millisecond.

    hmms think I'll go with option B there Bob. The potential "wow that's cool" factor would last exactly the same amount of time as it would take for me to go blind.

    It's not that its not fun. It's that some dip(&*t is going to blind themselves because of that post.
    • bubbadigg, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4blindness is a small price to pay for being cool !
    • dougmc, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7`or blind yourself severely impairing you life from that point onwards'

      Indeed. Let's hope nobody ever makes an article about how to make a sharp stick!
      • shark615, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3you can see a sharp stick coming across the room, you can't see this.

        A sharp stick won't accidently be drawn across your eyeballs making you blind.
        • paulisnotdead, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1well I could see this but only for a microsecond and then I can't
    • AverageJoe, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Why?

      Because I can....
    • ekay, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4the sooner some one blinds them self the sooner we will have one less dumb ass running around our streets.
      • jhul, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1A blind dumbass running around the streets is preferable to one who can see?
        • mtheoryx83, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yes, so long as he's not driving an SUV.
    • reptarbar, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I don't really care if they blind themselves, I just don't want to get my retina melted by some dumbass with a laser flashlight...
    • ToxicGas, on 08/11/2008, -1/+1no more dangerous than fireworks, bb guns, etc ... and those items are easily available already
  • darge0flex, on 10/10/2007, -5/+0Simple and dangerous: kid's will love it and the (eyes of the) police will hate it.
  • Cyberdactyl, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2I have access to unlimited CD players from my local state surplus warehouse. I can buy them in bulk of lots of 20 for $39.99.

    I'm drawing up the plans of hooking up an array of 20 diodes at once.
    • mrgreyer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yeah, too bad that it has to be a 16x DVD BURNER. Cd players will not work, except to make a normal laser pointr perhaps.
    • SteveMax, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3DO NOT use a CD player (or CD-RW) laser for this!!!

      CD lasers use an infrared wavelength. This means it's invisible. Which means you have no way to know if it's on or not.
      Infrared light is also way more susceptible to the atmospheric conditions. Its trajectory is bended by the air. This means that you cannot be sure of where it's pointing to.

      If you do this with a CD laser, you will have a powerful infrared laser, which will burn your eyes just as easily as this DVD laser; but you won't be able to tell if it's pointing at you (or at someone else) until it's too late.
  • Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+27Actually you're turning a laser into a laser.
  • ukblacknight, on 10/10/2007, -2/+31Next week... How to turn your microwave into a nuclear bomb!
    • empireofnyy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Then, the special "Baseball to hand-grenade!"
      • jhul, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0That one exists, though it's a tennis ball.
    • celkin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Easy: Just put a nuclear bomb INSIDE the microwave and set the timer.
    • worldofsmut, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Link please.
  • battleroyalex, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4anyone make one? can it burn paper?
  • chowderdick, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18That guy's voice gives me the creeps...
  • mattysan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Hey, at least the subject wasn't as irresponsible as "Do-It-Urself Lasik Surgery"
  • popothebright, on 10/10/2007, -1/+23EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. This can blind people very quickly. There's a reason lasers like this don't exist on the market (even though they're very easy to make).
    • mrgreyer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Oh but they do exist on the market, maybe you should look before you speak?

      source: www.wickedlasers.com
      • mlapaglia, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0indeed, I've got a few wicked lasers. the absolute coolest devices ever, when used responsibly.
    • Ajjah, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1More powerful lasers are for sale in the back of Popular Science (Hitting the CN tower from 12 miles away!). They are in the thousands of dollars, and some are more than twice as powerful.
    • worldofsmut, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Umm... Yeah they do exist on the market, but they are usually surrounded by a DVD burner.
  • in2deep, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2No way! Seriously?
  • jlebrech, on 10/10/2007, -6/+3How about quadrupling the voltage on the laser diodes so that they burn out really quickly but discharge a lot more of energy and then have those diodes interchangable like bullets in a gun.
    • JtJin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1you're going to need a lot of dvd burners ...
  • wiimahn, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2well for those that read the story and didn't realize that the title says "Turn a flash"night" into... wow! Otherwise..cool idea, always wondered what dvd burners did "outside" the box..haha :P
  • Jugalator, on 10/10/2007, -1/+26The hard part is getting hold of a Flashnight.
  • shanevendrell, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0I wonder how hard and effective it would be to incorporate this into a design for RONJA
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA
  • moose26, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Set your phazers to Balloon popping. I sense there will be a outbreak of crying children, formerly with Balloons, at theme parks and any public place where Balloons mingle and crazed tech monkeys mingle as well.
    • geoff1210, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6mass blindings in the house of mirrors...
  • shanevendrell, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2This kind of mod would be great to implement covertly at a laser tag place. That would be HILARIOUS.
    • jebus123, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Yeah, 'cause, having a bunch of people playing laser tag permanently blinded is so funny
    • beastlykings, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Until someone goes blind, yeah... real funny...
    • ThePerkins, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0I guess some people can't take a joke. Herbs.
  • Dipster, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22"With remaining eye, do not look into laser."
  • plastiqmanb, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Make mag came out with this first. Credit to make.
    • chanman2468, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Make mag will be the first to be sued. That's credit I wouldn't want.
  • LogicBomB, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Anyone else worried people will now make these and start ***** up other people's eyes like they did with laser pointers? Except this time the damage is for real.
    • Tobark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Seriously yes. IM thinking that there is now a market for anti laser sunglasses.

    • beastlykings, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I second that foresight into the future.
  • Kenzan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6This guy made a "laser" into a flashlight. The "laser" can burn matches and the "laser" can pop ballons.
    Give me one million dollars, or I shall turn my "laser" loose on the populace.
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