Hi im new to the forums. Ladies and gentlemen, I planning the worlds first high intensity partical laser mod for a PC... I really like those lasers at partys that shine through smoke and make a 'layer' of ulluminated particals. I hope to pull this of on a smaller scale inside my PC using a laser, a perspex box, a motor attached to a rotating mirror which would deflect laser light at right anngles and a tablespoonfull of dust. Now I know dust is going to get blowen but I have to overcome the problem of dust finding a 'sweet spot' where it can settle inside the in box. Maybe multiple fans or reduced 'sweet spots' could help... I'm thinking maybe the bottom of the box being a funnel so any dust falling down could get blowen up by the fan at the bottom of this sort of funnel... effectivly making the dust blowing process endless which is great for prolonged use. I'm not sure if I will get the right effect... at least im pretty much gaurateed a mid air viewable beam if I use the right type and ammount of dust. My laser will probably be a standard red type which should do the job. My dream would be to be able to see minature partical storms in the case. It would almost be like a lave lamp type illusion or a plasma ball style of interesting science, I would probably leave the fan to be adjustable. It should be fun trying this out, if anyone can reccomend any good, high visability / intensity lasers and dust ( hehe ) plz tell me... I only want to spend about 30£ on the laser. Maplin have some nice looking ones. Hey and if the dust don't work out I can always just fill it with watter and blow sum bubbles
Look good but maybe you should put the fans on the bottom and have them blow UP so they they will carry the dust up. I really dont know, youll have to experiment and youll need a fair bit of dust to have any kind of affect, that will look hella spiffy thats for sure. You might want to introduce something into the box akin to smoke. I just cant think of anything now. good luck
Nice one, getting particles to stay in air aint very easy - how about filling it up with water and then adding some clouding agent to the water (lemon cordial for example), would be a lot easier to keep it cloudy. On the laser front if you're using red I'd try and get a second hand pointer, it's very difficult to get new ones in illegal power ratings (to get into class 3A I think it has to be more than 1mW/cm^2). You should be able to pick up a 5mW pointer if you try hard enough (I've got one ) and if you're dispersing the beam as much as you intend the extra power will be nice Rob.
From your design it looks like your relying on the air blowing in to stop the particles going out, but i think a lot of fans have an area around the outside of the fins where they air is actually going the other way bacuase of turbulence or something, i remember reading about it. So maybe you'l need some sort of filter on the inside, just to make sure. Also, you couldn't just have the fan blowing air in to a sealed box. It would be like trying to pour milk from a coconut but only drilling one hole. The air has to be able to escape somewhere, else nothing will happen. All you'l do is increase the air pressure slightly. So maybe somthing like this would work... So it is totally self contained, no air is coming in, no air is going out. No particles escape, and the two fanse create turbulence and carry the particles up and around and back up to the top. Now it wouldn't matter if the particles went through the fans. You could also add some obstacles to create more turbulence, like some galss prisms (which would also have an interesting effect on the laser, im thinking.)
Cool Idea! How are you going to get the lazer beam to "fan" out. IIRC, the lazer pointers have a very focused beam, dunno about higher rated ones though. ~Davy
What about using a fine metal powder (i.e. iron powder)? That might reflect the light even better than dust, but I can see some conductivity and other safety problems with that (even in a sealed block). Just seems awfully hard to get a compact tablespoon of dust.
I think it would have to be like smoke, kinda like dry ice. You can buy spray smoke from maplins (NA66W) but i dunno if it would stay smoke like, or whether it would turn into a liquid or settle or what. Well you could have a little door on the side where u can top it up every so often i suppose. I reckon this mod could work
Cool idea....I figure the best way to get dust is to sand something with some medium grit sandpaper... the container WILL have to be sealed, and the fan(s) will definitely need to circulate the air/dust...BUT occasionally dust will collect on the fans...in the fans, and on the bottom in the corners...unless you can come up with a sealed fan, or have the fan moter mechanism outside of the sealed area...even with that though you'd have to tap it every so often or turn it upside down and tap it to break loose the collected dust particles.
Good idea. However, using just fans to circulate dust may have some downsides... The air current may have pockets of "dead" space where dust would settle and no longer be reachable (ie in the corners). And also dust passing through the fans would eventually clog them. Try this instead maybe... Have your self contained chamber with your dust, but instead have several dozen very small holes drilled through the top and bottom. Have a pipe or duct running to these holes, with a strong fan in the middle of the pipe to circulate. The holes will then more evenly disperse the airflow throughout the dust chamber. Much like the way an air hockey table works. And if you want to create more turbulent airflow, you can alternate the size of the holes throughout for different amounts of airflow in any given spot. kinda hard to describe but I think you'll understand.
This mod would be mad solid if you pull it off. Get a fog machine up in there for the cloud. Anyways, I cant wait to see the finished product.
Well, i was thinking about this last night in bed. Having the particles being blown about by any sort of airflow isn't going to reproduce the effect he wants, if you look at his picture. Those kind of patterns are caused by the smoke diffusing through the air naturally, not being blown about. It would be very hard to reproduce this exact effect, but i think you could pull off something similar...
personally, i dunno about the whole dust thing. for 1 the already mentioned dead spots. 2, this thing isnt gonna fit inside a typical case if you have fans and plexi and all. and 3: the dust will clog up the fans and they will die very quickly. dont get me wrong, im sure you could get it to work, but there may be better ways to get similar effects. some water in there or smoked plexi might be better for you. if youre into watercooling then maybe try out some stuff with a res. and if youre looking for the fanning effect, they make laser pointers with those replacable heads, and im pretty sure that they make a flat one. the angle wouldnt be that great but perhaps you could do something with that.
