7W will speedily pop balloons and light matches, cut black electrical tape and char wood at that energy level…

and i meant blu 7w duh.

i have much quieter methods but a laser just seems more funner.

“do you think a 7w green would hole a sidewall?”

The ability to burn is primarily how intense the spot is, and how long you can keep the spot precisely aimed at the same place. What’s going in your favor is that tires are *loaded* with carbon black, and that soaks up heat wonderfully. Google “black-body radiation” for deeper insights.

What’s working against you is the sheer mass of what you want to burn carrying the heat away from the spot.

If you wanna deflate a tire at a distance, a 147 grain subsonic bullet or 9mm or larger diameter is a much more reliable means to do so.

High-powered lasers are fun toys, as long you respect them. Permanent eye damage that will never heal is the penalty for not respecting the beamline…

do you think a 7w green would hole a sidewall?
asking for a friend.

“A handheld one? Way way cooler, even if it is the size of a power tool. Is there anything like that out there, 40?”

A handheld one, yes, but nothing you can purchase that’s powerful enough for a ‘hand gun’ replacement in a ‘star trek phaser’ kind of way.

There is this type of thing available > h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUq9qK-oFJI

Whats available in a useful ‘hand gun’ replacement in a ‘star trek phaser’ kind of way is mostly a DARPA government thing for experimentation and development. Other systems are not man portable, mostly relegated to ground/ship/vehicle based systems focused on specific applications, for example, the Raytheon Technologies HELWS system. There are government projects working on a ‘laser rifle’ for troops as a combat firearm rifle replacement but don’t expect them any time soon.

Then there are surgical lasers and although some are ‘handheld’ in a sense of the device control ‘wand’ thing its associated equipment is not and they are mostly CO₂ lasers, for example, h ttps://www.lightscalpel.com/laser-surgery/

To give you an idea of a laser rifle concept… China does have such a rifle designated the ZKZM-500, developed by Xian Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics in Xian, Shaanxi. It’s manufactured by the Institute’s subsidiary, ZKZM Laser. It weights about 6 pounds, and has a range of ~2,600 feet. The ZKZM-500 uses a lithium battery with enough power for ~1000 two second shots. Its reportedly capable of instantly scaring human skin and tissue, igniting clothing, knocking a small drone out of the sky, and igniting a fuel tank – this would place its power output in the 100-500 watts ranger (for comparison, most surgical lasers top out at 100 watts). But although there could be some use in combat its more of a special use thing and its not suitable as a combat firearm replacement for all troops but you can kinda see where they want to go with it to eventually do so.

There’s something else about green laser LEDs – even though the light is passed through the crystal that doubles the frequency of the light, quite a bit of invisible IR light passes trough as well, making them even more damaging to the retina in your eyes, literally ‘cooking’ them to death, permanently blinding you if any gets in your eyes.

Personally, I would avoid green lasers for cat toys altogether, unless you want a blind cat as well as yourself from a stray reflection, even a partial one…

“but she gave me one of the looks she learned from her mother. I subconsciously touched my most recent skillet lump, and lied that I was only kidding.”

A woman to be feared, my favorite kind! 😉

Green ‘burners’ are kinda expensive, because the laser LED itself doesn’t directly emit green light. The only (current) way to get green laser light is to use an infrared laser to (what they call) ‘double-pump’ the IR light frequency into green light, by dumping the IR emission into a special crystal that then emits green light. It’s kinda inefficient.

Now, there are handheld burning lasers out there, but they emit brilliant blue light.

You really, Really, REALLY don’t want to play with CO2 lasers, as the beam they emit is invisible infrared light. Leave those for the folks that know how to handle them.

Now, for a nifty fun hand-held blue burning laser that can INSTANTLY blind you, these folks are reputable, Sanwu in Taiwan :

7 watts of blue light

https://www.sanwulasers.com/product/7wblue

I own one of their older 1.6 watt blue ‘burners’, and am quit pleased with it. Their only real issue is that the beam isn’t a round ‘spot’, but an approx 1×3 ‘rectangle’, that has to do with how the high-powered LED device is manufactured.

If you wanna cut metal, you want a CO2 laser, but invisible infrared light can HURT you… 🙁

Our daughter worked in the laser lab as an undergrad, where they have half a dozen CO2 cutting lasers. They use them for cutting, shaping, and engraving sheet materials into pieces that are assembled into models (architecture projects). I asked her once if I could “borrow” one of the laser heads some weekend while she cleaned the machines. I thought that would be way cool, but she gave me one of the looks she learned from her mother. I subconsciously touched my most recent skillet lump, and lied that I was only kidding.

A handheld one? Way way cooler, even if it is the size of a power tool. Is there anything like that out there, 40?