The new secret lair

So I've got some even bigger and crazier ideas coming up. That means I'll need a new secret lair. I've been taking a look around this property. Turns out behind all that brush there's a really big fucking hill. It's zoned L1 so I can go up 25 above the top of the hill. It's tower/bunker time kids!

Also I just have to say, machetes are kick ass. But for projects like this, they really need to come in a two-handed form. These bushes were often over my head and an inch thick each.

Making the LP-1 laser pistol

The laser pistol was actually remarkably easy to build. The circuits for it are trivially easy. There are 4 blocks of laser diodes (6 lasers each) and I've got 4 pre-made 1A circuits for each of them running off a 4AH, 24V lithium battery pack (in blue).

There is single switch to turn them all on which is on a 1' wire. There's also switches for each of the sets of lasers for testing purposes which I mounted on the body.

The battery pack itself is actually two 12V batteries so there's a switch to flip the charger between them.

The frame itself is just two pieces of perforated steel L-bar. There's a single bolt in the back to hold them together. This provides the mounting for the main on-off switch as well as the laser and all the other parts.

I had to make some pretty funky parts to mount the laser block and here again the 3D printer proves it's value.






boltNutWidth = 14;//12.5;

boltHexWidth = 7.8; //tan(pi/6)*boltNutWidth

topSecHeight = 12;

topCutDepth = 100;//(topSecHeight-3)*2;

bottomHeight = 3;

boltRad = 5.1;

boltDistance = 15;

boltToFront = 16;

boltToSide = 40;

topBoltToFront = 18;

topBoltToSide = 20;

totalHeight = 23;

ftHeight = 6;

ftLen = 65;

ftWidth = 15;

wt = 3;

module laserTop()

{

difference()

{

union() //Added parts

{

translate( [ (ftLen+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (ftWidth+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt , wt/2 ])

cube(size=[ftLen+boltRad+wt,ftWidth+boltRad+wt, wt],center=true);

translate( [ (boltToFront-1+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (boltToSide+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt ,(wt-3)/2 ])

cube(size=[boltToFront-1+boltRad+wt, boltToSide+boltRad+wt, wt+3],center=true);

translate( [ (topBoltToFront-3+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (topBoltToSide+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt ,-topSecHeight/2 ])

cube(size=[topBoltToFront-3+boltRad+wt, topBoltToSide+boltRad+wt,topSecHeight],center=true);

}

union() //Removed parts

{

//special notch

translate( [20,13,0])

cube(size=[5,5,100],center=true);

cylinder(h=100, r=boltRad,center=true);

union()

{

rotate([0,0,0])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,60])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,120])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

}

translate([0,boltDistance,0])

{

cylinder(h=100, r=boltRad,center=true);

union()

{

rotate([0,0,0])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,60])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,120])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

}

}

}

}

}

module circuitHolder()

{

difference()

{

union() //Added parts

{

translate( [ (ftLen+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (ftWidth+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt , ftHeight/2 ])

cube(size=[ftLen+boltRad+wt,ftWidth+boltRad+wt, ftHeight],center=true);

translate( [ (boltToFront+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (boltToSide+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt ,bottomHeight/2 ])

cube(size=[boltToFront+boltRad+wt, boltToSide+boltRad+wt,bottomHeight],center=true);

translate( [ (topBoltToFront+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (topBoltToSide+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt ,totalHeight/2 ])

cube(size=[topBoltToFront+boltRad+wt, topBoltToSide+boltRad+wt,totalHeight],center=true);

}

union() //Removed parts

{

cylinder(h=100, r=boltRad,center=true);

translate([0,boltDistance,0])

cylinder(h=100, r=boltRad,center=true);

}

}

}

rotate([180,0,0])

laserTop();

//circuitHolder();

//translate([0,0,-10])

//cube(size=[30,30,20], center=true);










boltNutWidth = 14;//12.5;

boltHexWidth = 7.8; //tan(pi/6)*boltNutWidth

topSecHeight = 12;

topCutDepth = 100;//(topSecHeight-3)*2;

bottomHeight = 3;

boltRad = 5.1;

boltDistance = 15;

topBoltToFront = 10;

topBoltToSide = 25;

totalHeight = 23;

ftHeight = 6;

ftLen = 45;

ftWidth = 15;

wt = 3;

module laserTop()

{

difference()

{

union() //Added parts

{

translate( [ (ftLen+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (ftWidth+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt , wt/2 ])

cube(size=[ftLen+boltRad+wt,ftWidth+boltRad+wt, wt],center=true);

translate( [ (boltToFront-1+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (boltToSide+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt ,(wt-3)/2 ])

cube(size=[boltToFront-1+boltRad+wt, boltToSide+boltRad+wt, wt+3],center=true);

translate( [ (topBoltToFront-3+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt, (topBoltToSide+boltRad+wt)/2-boltRad-wt ,-topSecHeight/2 ])

cube(size=[topBoltToFront-3+boltRad+wt, topBoltToSide+boltRad+wt,topSecHeight],center=true);

}

union() //Removed parts

{

//special notch

translate( [20,13,0])

cube(size=[5,5,100],center=true);

cylinder(h=100, r=boltRad,center=true);

union()

{

rotate([0,0,0])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,60])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,120])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

}

translate([0,boltDistance,0])

{

cylinder(h=100, r=boltRad,center=true);

union()

{

rotate([0,0,0])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,60])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

rotate([0,0,120])

cube([boltHexWidth,boltNutWidth,topCutDepth],center=true);

}

}

}

}

}

//rotate([180,0,0])

//laserTop();

circuitHolder();

//translate([0,0,-10])

//cube(size=[30,30,20], center=true);

Taking the 24W laser on the road

Setup for the slo-mo campera

Thanks to Star @ http://intellectualventureslab.com for the camera & filming. We setup this little shake outside the lab and they lent us the use of their mondo-expensive high speed camera for an afternoon.

Notice that with the angles the gun shoots at it actually hits the target at an angle and can really take a flight through the sky.

World's fastest coil gun breaking a 3mm thick piece of acrylic

This material actually has some non trivial strength. But if it doesn't flex, it's got nothing on the accelerator.

Slow motion: MA-11 shooting an aluminum plate.

One thing you can especially see here is that the projectile is not going straight as it approaches the target. Clearly we need some rifling or fletching.

Perhaps my favorite though is how gravity becomes negligible in slow motion (it's the weakest force involved). So the plate will essentially just fly into space since it'll be some time before gravity's slow impulse has any effect.

L-1: 24W Laser Gun

This is the first shit with the new laser gun. It's a very simple design (I can make what I've got here in about 1hr now that I know what to make).

I am running into difficulty focusing the beam, however. It turns out I don't know a lot about optics (they seem so straightforward). I do have a lot of left-over lenses from the projector and I have an idea of how to re-assemble them to try and columnate the beam. In my defense, I'm facing an usual situation here. Specifically, there are 24 laser diodes putting out beams that are not totally focused and then I come in with the objective of re-focusing all those beams into a single beam. Of course, I need to have focused each beam first to make this job simple. I'm going to try and work with the imperfect unfocused beams first. We'll see how it goes.

The worse case scenario is removing all the lasers from the main housing and then milling my own laser housing with it's own fittings for all the individual laser lenses. That said, I have a hard time imagining that I'll fair better than they did.