Reply To: LED Effects – Star Trek Phaser Array

Well Amazon handled it the right way….and they made it even though it wasnt their mistake.

I
dont know if there are any regulations. But what I know is, that those
cheap lasers can be quite dangerous. Much more power than allowed, much
more powere than labeled and so on.

The idea of having a LCARS
interface is now about 20 years old. Back then I had no idea how to make
them. Even Arduino didnt exist. And then I found videos like the one
you have seen. You can imagine that my jaw doped. Someone is the same
kind of Nerd like Iam. hahahaha

And your idea of putting real lasers in, isnt new…..take a look at this video (about 1 minute in)

Real Phaser

There is no problem with location of target…..just put laser LED to every single WS2812 hahahaha
What
I dont like about the laser is that you need to have some sort of
protection. And even with this kind of protection, it is not save. To
make it save, you have to use a wavelength filter, but then you arent
able to see the lasers anymore and building a whole box made of
professionel laser protecting material is very very expensive and the
material is colored.
The other problem is the visibility of the laser. In Star Trek they dont shoot laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)…..it
is called phaser. And it is a weapon which generates particles called
Nadions and it is a beam of heavily energized particles. Thats why the
whole beam is visible. With a laser, except for some dust particles,
the laser would only be visible at the diode and where the laser hits
something. Oh damn am I a Nerd.

Where do you want some lighting
for explosion? Are you thinking about putting the model in a box and
having some points (at the box) where it can light up when the phaser is
firing? This goes along with the idea of moving stars. We could put it
in a box with a black background. But then one side of the ship will be
not visible for viewers. How would you make those moving stars? Several
horizontal WS2812 strips and an effect that simulates those star
streaks?

Moving Stars

And you are a part of this project!