• rklm@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    14 hours ago

    A 1w laser will permanently blind you instantly. You can buy/build them very cheaply and easily, but a class 4 laser isn’t a toy.

    For perspective, the regular red laser pointers from your local store are like 5mW at most.

    A 44w laser is probably an IR fiber laser used for tattoo removal or some industrial application. You can get them cheap, but they are not handheld. Also lasers that powerful tend to be pulsed.

    Nichia makes 5w+ 445nm diodes that are small enough to fit in a flashlight

    • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      I’m familiar. The 44W lasers I mentioned are blue diode lasers from consumer-grade laser cutters/engravers. They actually consist of multiple diodes with some optics that combine all the beams into a pretty small kerf. Last time I checked I was only able to find IR diode lasers up to 2W. I’m hoping to get my hands on an IR diode laser some day that I can stick on my CNC mill and make it a laser cutter as well but realistically those will have to be 2 separate devices. An IR diode laser would be a lot more stealthy for taking out Flock cameras…

      Somewhere I have a 1W blue handheld laser that I bought in college and used to light blunts with. Wearing laser shades, of course.

      At a place I worked at for a little while they had 16kW fiber lasers that could cut through steel like butter. It was magical.