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Rail Road laser "cannon" stolen






Too bad they don't mention the wavelength & power.

Oh hey just noticed you have the Dorkbot PDB group buy in your sig! :beer:
Isn't the purple soldermask great!
 
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I'm thinking somebody stole it for the case and doesn't know what they have there. Now the media goes and tells them what it is and what it's worth. Hopefully the power supply was in a different case. Or maybe we'll read that the morons fired it up and walked in front of it or looked into it!
 
"Laser Cannon", ROTFL ..... it's probably an alignment device.

And about the "$12,000" part, double ROTFL ..... i guess someone can build a device for "professional use" with a 100mW or similar laser unit and a beam expander, and reach to sell it for 12,000$ to some public administrations (i still remember the "$100 hammers" old joke about army :p :D)
 
MWAHAHAHAHA THEY WILL NEVER CATCH ME MWahAHAHHA pilots and the superbowl better beware!!!!
 
If a better example of fear mongering exists I dont think ive seen it. These reports are idiotic at best.
 
a railway laser cannon? What do they need that for to check the rails with? Does it also blast off the rust?
 
Oh is that what I found in my garage this morning? Sorry guys.. crazy night last night.
 
BShanahan14rulz said:
a railway laser cannon? What do they need that for to check the rails with? Does it also blast off the rust?
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They said it was for measuring alignment so I would guess its not all that powerful. Anything over 5mW can be considered a "cannon" in the eyes of the public.


I would guess most of the hype comes from the fact that its 3 feet long so its considered very large and thus assumed powerful by the ignorant. For all we know its a 3mW hene
 
If you look closely at the first frame of the video there is a scope mounted on top of the tube! But yea ... how the heck do you "weaponize" what is already a weapon. Kinda like saying my Glock 23 is not weaponized. :crackup:
 
Helios said:
If a better example of fear mongering exists I dont think ive seen it. These reports are idiotic at best.
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You nailed that one. Fear = ratings.
Whoever wrote this story needs a smack in the head.
 
It's a hazardous laser device which deserves "respect", but let's put it in perspective here. The need for it to be more than about one watt of green/red to go 1/2 to 1 mile just wouldn't make sense. So yes it's a big pointer but a cannon only because it has a large "host" that is probably vibration isolated. :D

Edit: it would need very low divergence to give a precise "spot" on the target a mile away though.
 
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