Remember: Always wear your safety glasses!

January 26, 2012 10:24 AM

Laser Pointer Hack! A DIY guide to turning your laser pointer into a laser cannon.
posted by quin (20 comments total)

You can have my laser cannon when you pry it from my cold dead still warm, slightly smoking, fingers.
posted by madajb at 10:33 AM on January 26

I had never heard of this guy, or the Annoying Orange, before this. The Annoying Orange Youtube Channel's videos have accumulated 1,024,053,929 views. Daneboe's YT Channel's vids have 597,471,867. Therefore, I demand that you hack your alarm clock to turn back time and undo all of this the damage. Nobody will thank you, but you will know you've done the right thing.
posted by not_on_display at 11:00 AM on January 26

I took it as a spoof of the lifehacker type stuff. Although it was better done here.
posted by narcoleptic at 11:01 AM on January 26

GET.THE.BIGGEST.LASER.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:15 AM on January 26 [2 favorites]

Liar.
posted by CrazyJoel at 11:20 AM on January 26

Riiight. Stopped watching when he said "there is a small switch", which is too bad, because I was expecting a Dans Data "here's how you overdrive your LED/laser" video. I think this is same guy who had the "millions of AA batteries from a car battery" gag.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 11:25 AM on January 26

What happens if your batteries run out?
posted by Saddo at 11:26 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Here is a genuine hack which modifies a momentary switch on a laser pointer to a conventional on/off switch.
posted by Tube at 11:30 AM on January 26

I did like the splatter effect.
posted by phearlez at 11:54 AM on January 26

Color me disappointed. Which is easy to do with the Adobe Disappointed Filter effect.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:30 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]

For an amateur-produced video, that was pretty darned neat.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:59 PM on January 26

To clarify - I'm only disappointed because my dream for a cheap and easy hand-held laser cannon is thwarted once again.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:04 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

I'd settle for a game of Laser Tag with Nick Cannon.
posted by mintcake! at 1:29 PM on January 26

The democratization of video has come to mean that everything now has the mentality of your local network affiliate's 1981 afterschool variety show.
posted by scrowdid at 1:56 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

The democratization of video has come to mean that everything now has the mentality of your local network affiliate's 1981 afterschool variety show.

Starring Bill Nye the Science Guy and Joel McHale.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:20 PM on January 26

What scrowdid said. If you have kids who are allowed to use the Internet, you're already running screaming in the opposite direction. He didn't call it "annoying" for nothing.
posted by sneebler at 5:47 PM on January 26

Do not look into laser cannon with remaining eye.
posted by biscotti at 7:13 PM on January 26

i have taken apart three different laser pointers and STILL cannot find that damned DIP switch...
posted by brando_calrissian at 8:14 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Dent Repair
posted by jeffburdges at 8:41 PM on January 26

The democratization of video has come to mean that everything now has the mentality of your local network affiliate's 1981 afterschool variety show.

I agree, things are looking up for video compared to what you might gather from watching network TV.
posted by DU at 8:56 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]