Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Error in the text: 1000mW laser with 532nm wavelength which is green light.
1000nm light is infrared.
Get spray paint and a nerdy friend that prints this for you
https://www.printables.com/model/1331669-wasp-spray-can-pole-mount
Spray can on a stick.
That would be a class IV laser and dangerous to eyesight merely from the light scattered off surfaces you point it at. If you point it at a camera and watch what is happening for a while you could get irreversible eye damage.
There is nothing special about cameras that makes them vulnerable - if you shine such a laser at a person, you'll likely burn them too. If the beam shines or bounces into your eye, you will likely burn your retina before you can even blink.
This is not a meme or a shitpost, it is very dangerous.
Use eye protection when vandalizing the surveillance state, got it!
Also give eye protection to literally everyone else who might be standing anywhere in the reflective range of the cover, lens, mirrors, and any shiny metallic objects. These lasers can do damage before you even blink.
e: This includes non-human animals as well. If you're okay with potentially blinding a bunch of innocent corvids I guess that's on you.
Also do it when nobody else is around.
That's good advice regardless of the danger your vandalism poses to bystanders.
Aircraft don’t always have transponders on so can’t rely on flight trackers
Imagine blinding a [military] pilot even just for the briefest moment. We can’t keep them in the sky on a good day for reasons I don’t understand (they’ll hit commercial aircraft or vice versa!)
Places like Santa Cruz simply fought these spy cams with their voices. Riseeee upppp, no votes for any city councilpeople who are OK Flocking up their own turf
Yeah a multitool with a tungsten carbide blade + a mask is safer
I have often wondered how effective it'd be to just use a spraypaint canister on a pole.
Also, dont bring a phone with, at all. Or anyone else. Or any Bluetooth devices. Bad opsec can lead to bad outcomes.
I suggest you find a nerdy friend and print yourself this nice tool https://www.printables.com/model/1331669-wasp-spray-can-pole-mount
I’d suggest a faraday cage, but I’ve recently learned that cops will also use the lack of cell location info as evidence now too. Best to leave it home, maybe even have someone use it for you while you’re, uh, occupied.
My laser range safety officer class forced me to learn about making sure the range was clear of any metalic objects that could reflect the laser back to the firing point, blinding a shooter. We always just shot during the day instead. Don't these cameras have a glossy finish on a curved chassis that could just... reflect the laser almost anywhere?
Why not just a baseball bat?
Presumably because it's a camera and a laser could be far enough away not to see who's doing the laser pointing.
The camera doesn’t see 360 degrees, just sayin’
Assuming there is just one.
A laser pointer is supposed to be limited to a maximum of 5mW, so these are really freaking powerful (200 times stronger). I don't have experience with lasers that strong, because I value my eyesight, and that of my pets. Please learn more about lasers than I know before purchasing something like this.
A lot of the lazers from non reputable brands have are more powerful than rated, I think it was styropyro that has videos of it. But also a few sites sell 1w lasers and also it's easy to make as well.
And there's lots where they use frequency doubling to make the laser light while having very poor filtering. Meaning that not only is the visible part of the light very dangerous, but the invisible light (which may have unpredictable patterns) can be even higher wattage and far more dangerous because you don't even know its there.
Yeah, I certainly wasn't saying these would be hard to get. And yeah, a lot of cheap laser pointers are also dangerous. What I'm saying is basically, "Hey, this is potentially dangerous, read up on this before you reach for your credit card."
To hit the sensor, you need to be in shot (by definition). Remember that walking patterns and other minutia can help identify you.
Yes, a big one for me is the distance between your eyes. I see so many people covering their face but not their eyes and the bridge of their nose.
Get a wheelchair or some such nonsense. A cane and practice a limp. Also wear laser safety goggles.
Try walking with a pebble in your shoe. That'll change your gait and its not something you're faking so it doesn't require focus to maintain.
1000mW or simply 1W.
1000000 uWatt!
Damn, that's a big number
You're right, but for something like a consumer laser pointer that's typically rated in mW it makes sense to write 1000 mW and not 1 W.
It makes clear how vastly different that is from the regular ones.
but that doesn't sound as cool
which also means anywhere that sells them would advertise it as 1000 [GOLDEN PRESENTERS VOICE WITH HIGH REVERB] mW and I feel a lot of people wouldn't know the difference.
1000000μW!
Oh waow! It has the cool u! Must be even better than the other ones!
0.7376 ft lbf/s (foot pounds-force per second)
It just rolls off your tongue!
2.8e-7 kWh per second!
238920 µcal_15 °C/s (microcalories (15 °C) per second)
It sounds exactly as cool as it is. 1000mW reads as 10^3 ×10^(-3)W, which reads pretty pointless. At some point in science you just write everything in scientific notation and remove the multipliers altogether.
A tip for you all when you need to damage small objects without getting caught:
Make the best slingshot you can, train your aim and shooting strength, wait for a heavy rain day and shoot ice cubes at it. The rain will impair visibility and muffle the impact sounds, making it much harder to spot you, and there will be no evidence of what hit the object. Also, there's nothing illegal about having a slingshot with you. The rain can make it harder to hit the object, but a few attempts will allow to learn compensate for it
Where I live, police can draw assumptions from the fact you have a slingshot with you, and arrest you based on those assumptions. So you'd need to have a damn good reason you're carrying a slingshot prepared in advance.
I just so happen to be in need of a 1W, 532nm laser pointer!
Are the cheapies (under $100) useful laser pointers, or are the more expensive ones a better choice for a productive use of the laser pointer? Links welcome!
Suitable applications of 1w lasers
Tasks 1w lasers are unsuitable for
As I recall the cheap lasers have an issue with the quality of their wavelength. Both in contamination and precision. Which leads glasses not being effective.
medical (I guess it’s in the range for tattoo removal, but power rating for these lasers are stated weirdly)
for those curious (you probably know this though), lots of these are pulsed, primarily to avoid excessive local heating (burning) of the tissue being lased. these can have peak powers in the kilowatt range!
watts are energy (in joules) divided by time (in seconds), and while relating energy to time is helpful for constant-power applications—and even some certain pulsed applications—the timeframe here is often small to the point of not mattering much, and a direct measure of the total energy delivered is ultimately most useful. nonetheless they are very impressive sounding and goofy, like "oh i work with multi-KILOwatt lasers on the daily :3" hehe
any kind of pointing, besides cases where you wish to permanently damage your audience.
for a single one watt beam of light, absolutely! do not bring those to the school show-and-tell. but there are absolutely lasers this (or even more) powerful used in concert settings and so forth. still, you're very right, care must be taken with them too.
also your point of output contamination is spot on! +1 to avoiding cheap "powerful" lasers :)
lots of these are pulsed, primarily to avoid excessive local heating (burning) of the tissue being lased. these can have peak powers in the kilowatt range!
I just wrote "weird" because trying to explain 250mJ delivered in 15ns became too much math to put into a comment I wanted people to read.
also your point of output contamination is spot on! +1 to avoiding cheap "powerful" lasers :)
That's what fucking around finds out for you. Luckily I never got to the stage in my project where I put on my budget non-certified goggles, and powered on el cheapo laser diode. But if I can help somebody else to not trust the nominal values, then I'll chime in when this is brought up.
Any idea where the quality is appropriate for the task? Like a $300 range or like a $2k range?
Honestly, I've got no idea what price range is plausible these days. What I do know is, that I would only buy from someone who knows what they're doing, and who can provide a proper datasheet. But then again I come at this from an electronics angle, so I'd want a datasheet with stats on the beam, like wavelength composition, and heat dissipation etc, and not just forward voltage and current.
If you're looking to buy a finished product, then figure out what regulatory markings it should have, like UL, CSA, CE, and TÜV. Personally I may be European, but I wouldn't be satisfied with a CE marking, it must at least have TÜV before I'd mess with it, and I'd prefer it to be UL listed as well. Anybody can slap CE on a product, but UL and TÜV are actual testing institutions.
If you want to use these in an uncontrolled environment, definitely get the appropriate laser safety glasses (such as these) as well, and have anyone you don't want to blind who are anywhere nearby or in line of sight close their eyes. Even the scattered reflection off glass or the metal of a camera mount can burn people's retinas permanently, and depending on the surfaces it could scatter a few times and still have enough power to cause damage.
This means if a target is near a highway, you could blind passing motorists. If it's near buildings, you could blind people peeking from windows.
Treat a 1W laser like a power tool. Amateurs can learn to use them safely, but you want to learn from guides rather than from mistakes.
WARNING: Definitely DO NOT point a [1000mW, 532nm laser] at Flock cameras. It totally won't damage the sensor and render the camera ineffective. So please don't consider it, okay?
Also worth noting: Flock cameras and most other ALPRs operate at 840nm, which is perfect for purchasing IR LEDs at their operating wavelength, so you can hide them behind a license plate border to toggle on whenever you drive past one to wash out any details they could pickup.
But a police officer would definitely be pulling you over and citing you if they catch that, so like, be sneaky or vigilant with its use.
Subsonic 22LR would be cheaper, more effective, and safer.
And you can get it from the side where there won't be video of you doing the deed. A little target practice is a nice bonus.