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need help with lasers!
i am doing a laser project using three mirrors and motors to make a kind of spirograph. my mirrors are a hard drive platter. what wattage should the laser be so that it can go threw 3 mirrors then be seen properly on the wall at a 2m distance
Discussions
Best Answer 8 years ago
I just did this with an average red laser pointer (< 5mW). If you get a more powerful laser, it will be brighter, but I am not sure that it will add much at that distance.
Answer 8 years ago
i was using a cheap dollar laser i think it was 5mw, i could only see the drawings at less than a feet (using a cd as mirror) but i will soon upgrade to a hard drive platter then we will see
Answer 8 years ago
How bright is the room that you are working in?
Answer 8 years ago
it was neon lighted, but the room im going to use this in will have non coloured xmas lights. also what does the wave length change on a laser?
im planning on buying this laser, is it a good idea?
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/true-green-laser-pen-5mw-91
Answer 8 years ago
It changes the color of the light.
That should be a little brighter.
8 years ago
You should only need 2 mirrors?
Answer 8 years ago
the more mirrors you add the more modulation it makes
8 years ago
If you're struggling with it maybe you should ask Randofo for help in the comments of his Instructable, perhaps something wasn't clear enough?
8 years ago
Any small laser will be fine. There is no need for a lot of power at all at that range
Steve
Answer 8 years ago
+1. An ordinary $10 laser pointer will do just fine. For that matter, a slide projector with a pinpoint slide, focused properly, would also work.
(Related: websearch "edmund scientific musicvision", a system which generated random lissajous figures based on music input by mounting mirrors loosely to speakers. It was originally used with a slide projector or similar focused light source, but some versions of it worked just fine with lasers too. Uncontrolled, but had the advantage that the whole figure came out of a single mirror... and multiple mirrors could be mounted to a single speaker to cheaply fill a wall with lighting effects.)