Do it yourselfer makes a portable 1 Megawatt laser gun!

This is this awesome on a new level; to begin with, it looks like it’s right out of Star Wars, secondly it weighs only 2lbs and has a capacity of around 50 shots. Shots can penetrate thin plastic when unfocused, but once focused with a lens, it can pierce thin metal like a razor-blade and it goes through plastic like butter.

Patrick Priebe, the designer of this device, says he took around 70 hours of work to complete the project and he’s already sold it, he’s working on making a second one.

The question I have is how he focuses the beam seeing how it’s based on a pulse. Is there a tracking device inside the unit, much like an automatic camera, that focuses the beam? Or does he have to manually set his focus prior to shooting his target? This would mean that a potential military force would have to stop, measure the distance to his target, then back away again, focus the beam, and fire. This would hinder a potential galactic empire invasion.

Still, the gun is pretty cool although frankly, I can’t think of any uses for it other than to have fun bursting balloons at a distance.

However this other  laser is pretty awesome too. It’s only 1W, but it’s purple and burns through plastic with the same ease that Obama spends 100.000.000$ on a 3 day military campaign in say, Swaziland. It might look less portable and cool, but I’d love either one of the two to play with. In the mean time, I’ll have to settle for my 200mW red DX laser.

Video below is of the 1 megawatt laser gun.

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Categories
Science and Tech

Limited production music, fiction and comedy. Actually, very limited. To follow on Twitter: Child of Glass
2 Comments on this post.
  • Leanordnimoysdog
    17 July 2011 at 9:54 pm
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    Um, it’s only one megawatt, not one kilowatt. Slight difference there.

    • Anonymous
      19 July 2011 at 3:22 am
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      Oops! Thanks for pointing out the error.

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