Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.
TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust.
WTF?! We're now living in times when a YouTuber is able to build what is apparently the world's strongest handheld laser. The device is powerful enough to melt titanium, fracture diamond, weld razor blades, and even make synthetic rubies.
Drake Anthony – better known to his 3 million YouTube followers as styropyro – is a chemist and YouTuber with a fondness for building huge lasers and playing with electricity and chemicals. His latest project was a build "so far off the laser-danger chart the eye-hazard is incomprehensible."
Styropyro is referring to the Laser 2025, a 250-watt, battery-powered blue-diode array he claims is the strongest handheld laser ever filmed. The device occupies a power class normally reserved for industrial metal cutters and research labs, and is 50,000 times the 5-milliwatt ceiling that the US Food and Drug Administration sets for consumer laser pointers.
Styropyro begins by gutting a surplus police microwave-radar gun, which has a roomy aluminum shell that offers both shielding and a pistol-grip form factor.
He packs the gun with 20 high-power Nichia-type blue diodes. Power comes from a buck-converted driver bank, which feeds the array with nearly 30V at 10A, while the temperature is kept in check using a PC water-cooling loop (CPU block, pump and radiator).
A focus lens in a threaded barrel lets Styropyro move between a 3mm "cut" spot and a 30mm flood beam. Soft targets like paper and plastic burst into flames instantly, and it's able to scorch a 2 x 4 in under two seconds.
Aluminum cans, copper, and titanium all melt when subjected to the Laser 2025's beam. A penny also briefly bursts into flame when fired upon.
Probably the most impressive moment is the gemstone experiment. By focusing on a pressed pellet of aluminum-oxide mixed with chromium, Styropyro melts and recrystallizes the powder into tiny synthetic rubies. He's also able to blacken and fracture a lab-grown diamond with his invention.
Styropyro emphasizes the dangers in creating a device this powerful – he used protective gear throughout and built in several safeguards.
While building lasers this powerful is not illegal in the US, selling them, taking them outdoors, or aiming them skyward is prohibited by law.
English (US) ·