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Benson's Avatar
Posts: 4,930 | Thanked: 2,272 times | Joined on Oct 2007
#43
Originally Posted by stone17 View Post
could you please specify "a powerfull laser"?
i very much dought that you can damage anything on your phone with standard class 1 and 2 lasers, which are more or less eyesafe.
Eyesafe, yes. Not necessarily camera-safe, since a camera lacks the protections found in your eye (blink reflex, pupil contraction). Still, Class 1 are almost certainly safe. (Remember, Class 2 are the ones that are eyesafe only if the blink reflex is taken into account.)
you would have to tightly focus a class 2 laser and even then the power would still too be low.
Focus it, like through a camera lens? Yeah -- and IMO the power is iffy here, high-end Class 2 (1mW) is IMO likely enough.
a class 3 laserwould do the trick but i wonder what your friend is doing with a class 3 laser, its not that you would get them for a few hundred bucks at wallmart.
Class IIIa lasers are not at all hard to get -- or especially dangerous. Probably more like $25 at Walmart, and $10-$20 numerous places online. I have several of these, and even a Class IIIb (less than $25), and simply keep them away from eyes and cameras. Admittedly, the Class IIIb (a 20mW blue-violet pointer) was imported and sold in violation of FDA regs, which require a key lockout, etc., but legitimate versions are available with those safety features.

anyways, i ld say anything above 10TW is a powerfull laser...
I'm not sure if that was a typo or a joke; the most powerful laser I've seen in operation was a 15W argon unit (very impressive, I assure you!), and the most powerful in the world are MW-class chemical lasers (for military purposes, naturally). While a class IIIa pointer may not seem "powerful" by those standards, compare it to other things likely to be shined in one's camera or eyes; the sun delivers roughly 1kW/m^2, and a laser beam with only a couple mm^2 aperture and 5mW power easily exceeds that.