Green Lazers Visability

a 4.9mW green laser will not be visible without any smoke/fog. a 4.9mW laser is very very low power... you need some sort of medium in the air in order for the light to refract off. I dont think you would be pleased with the effect at all for what you are trying to accomplish....

just my 2 watts....

So how powerful of a laser would people recomend to acheive my original goal. I do not want it to be two powerful as I am on a budget for this endevor. Thanks

Will Sanders

Remember there's got to be SOMETHING in the air to reflect the laser beam. On a cold winter night ourside, it's not going to matter much what power unit you are using -- even a couple hundred watts (which you definitely don't want to mess with). You may need to experiment with a fog machine (don't let the liquid freeze) a distance away so there is a very diffused "fog" in the area where you want your show to be seen. a 5mw green laser can be surprisingly visible if there's something to reflect it. Even inside you'll see a lot of "dust" particles in the air.

Couple hundred watts heehee, Pink Floyd only uses 1-3 watt lasers. (You'd need a couple of semi's for power and a cooling plant heehee) Couple hundred milliwatts I have a few 50mW green lasers, and they light the place up on their own, but on stage you need to dim the lights for them to really stand out. Of course, this is all theory since using them in public is illegal w/out a variance. Haze works pretty well, but fog adds additional texture to the light pattern. Haze just shows the beam nice and even, where fog looks like the a nebula from a Hubble photo

Anyway, try not to mess w/ red, you need a lot more power to make it visible. To balance out a red/green laser you would use like 70mW red/ 40mW green. Ebay is full of cheap, powerful lasers from China, you might not get the full power they advertise (who has a meter anyway?) and the FCC hasn't approved them so you will never get a variance for them. Also they have very cheap motors in them so the effects are subpar (but bright). A US made version will/could be legal (if you get the variance) and will probably be more flexible/look better, but at about 3-4x the cost. Not sure how they (China) can do it so cheaply or if its some US based regulation that makes them so expensive here.

--Kev

i love my china laser machines lol

i've got 4 of them and they rule... lol