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Old 2nd Dec 2015, 10:09
  #810 (permalink)  
sarabande
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Somerset
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there's a world of difference between laser pointers and these Cmas lights.

Pointers have a narrow beam divergence, typically 1.5 mrad. This means for a laser beam starting at 1.5mm diameter, at 200 meters, the spot will have expanded to 24cm dia.

Christmas laser lights start (mainly) with a single beam which passes through a random diffraction grating so that the light zips off in multiple directions, Lasers are basically single frequency (monochromatic) so for a multicolour display you need different coloured emitters.

The divergence is many times greater than that of a pointer, so if you have a figure of 10mrad, at 200metres, the beam will be 200cm wide, and the light will be attenuated, err, millions of times. In effect, the light from the laser is spread out over perhaps thousands of points, each one a cone rather than a beam.


Try shining a point source of light into a heap of shattered windscreen glass to see the effect of divergence and diffraction.

Low risk, IMHO.
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