Reverse Engineer Laser Dazzler?

by **coljohnhannibalsmith** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:10 am

Does anyone out there think they can reverse engineer this little gem?

http://www.laserdazzler.net/

I believe it is a DPSS (Diode Pumped Solid State) Green Laser that operates at 532nm from about .5 to 5W. It appears to have optics to up-collimate the beam to about 3 - 4" in diameter.

There are a number of DPSS Green Lasers that can be purchased off-the-shelf and most of the theory can be obtained from "Sam's Laser FAQ;"

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserioi.htm

however, the difficult part will be designing the up-collimating lens.

by **coljohnhannibalsmith** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:56 pm

Oh, here we go!

This can be done with off the shelf components. The Hercules 500:

http://www.laserglow.com/index.php?hercules

Appx $3000.00

Beam Expander or Up-Collimator:

http://www.laserglow.com/index.php?lasernews

Appx $500.00

Who would have guessed :roll:

Oh and and should you be fired on by another mad scientist.

Safety Glasses in nifty sports colors:

http://www.laserglow.com/index.php?fitovergoggles

There you have it, a DIY Threat Illumination System for under $4000.00, with appx the same performance characteristics as the original!

Don't hate me because I'm diabolical :twisted:

Oh, BTW I'd still like to see someone kit-bash this thing and make it even less expensive and more powerful, say 5W at under $1500.00

by **Wordmhan** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:35 pm

Great work reverse engineering this device though you're right that the cost is still up there. Besides reducing it, the next challenge, if anyone wants to take it on, is engineer the next upgrade that they are talking about, even before they achieve it vis Make the thing strobe to greatly multiply its capacity for visual disruption. Can anyone figure that one out?

by **-NKT-** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 5:12 am

You can put one of these together really easy these days.

You can also make it pocket portable.

Buy a high powered pen sized diode laser from anywhere that does high powered green diode lasers (Wicked are one, iirc) then buy a small but strong lens to spread the beam out wide. Now add a Fresnel lens to "collimate" the spreading beam. No, it will be far from perfect, but it is flat and light. Now think of a way to position the Fresnel just right, quickly.

If you want better effectiveness, use a cylindrical lens to spread the beam into a bar, rather than a circle, and trim your Fresnel to match, making it smaller. Add a chopper wheel for the flickering effect (don't turn the laser on and off really fast, it won't like it. The doubler chip will get thermally shocked, and it has a long rise and fall time.)

Just be careful what you use it for, and when.

(If you wanted to get really advanced, you could Q switch the output before the first lens to get the pulsing you might want, as well as increasing the efficiency over a beam chopper wheel. The Q switch is a bit like a capacitor for light.)

Edit: Just looked at that site you linked to. That collimator is completely unsuitable for what you want, it puts out a 20mm beam. You'd have to be literally miles away to have a big enough spot to do anything useful. The plain beam would do better at any range you could really see someone at, as it spreads more before reaching your target.

by **Bob15** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 12:45 am

The show Manswers on Spike-tv just said that the Dazzler can be made for $250.00

by **jessica89** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:08 am

And don't yiu know what is the current situation with the price?

by **Sebastian6** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:34 am

Actually, DPSS (Diode Pumped Solid State) has some limitations, as in the early years of diode pumping, the output powers achievable were very limited – smaller than those of lamp-pumped lasers. In the meantime, however, high-power diode bars and diode stacks have become very powerful, and the highest output powers are now usually achieved with diode pumping.

The main disadvantage of diode pumping (as compared with lamp pumping) is the significantly higher cost per watt of pump power. This is severe for high powers. For this reason, lamp pumping is still used in cases where high powers are needed, particularly when the power is used only for short times. For example, lamp-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG lasers are still widely used for laser marking, and will not soon be replaced with diode-pumped lasers.

Laser diodes are electrically less robust than discharge lamps. They may e.g. be quickly destroyed by excessive drive currents, or by electrostatic discharges. In conjunction with properly designed electronics, however, this should not happen. Problems can also arise from optical feedback.