Home Projects #3: Laser Pointer (That Lights Stuff on Fire)

It's important for the sake of your healthy curiosity, your desire to learn, and perhaps your unquenchable thirst for destruction, to understand that very dangerous things come in small and misleading packages. 

 Exhibit A

That's the Noisy Cricket for those who weren't enlightened enough to go watch Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith fight aliens for what some might describe as best hour and a half of their entire lives. Men in Black taught me most everything school didn't, while still inserting a heartwarming message of tolerance and unity. I'm not going to be teaching you anything like that today. No, today, we learn to build a laser pointer that can cut plastic in half.

I don't care what Al says.

Just open up the DVD/RW drive from an old computer tower, or the disc drive on your broken Xbox 360, and you have mostly all the parts you need. You only need to separate the laser diode from the sled it sits on. The laser diode is the actual laser that reads those games, cds, and dvs. It looks like this.

And it is beautiful. 

Those three prongs represent the positive, negative, and grounds for your new home made light saber. You are going to need to place the diode in a case of some kind, and then find a power source, and here's the best part. 

Here's your guy. 

MAKE SURE YOUR POWER SOURCE HAS A SWITCH. For the love of God have a switch installed, or watching your full powered laser pointer roll off the table with battery attached could blind 5 people before it hits the ground. This laser pointer will blind you if you shine it in your eyes, along with burn plastic, light matches, and be all around the coolest thing you own. Enjoy, and find me on Facebook if you have any questions.