VOTW: Man Makes ''Death Ray'' with Satellite Dish

[liveonc]

If only scientists weren't so busy with Sci-Fi, maybe people wouldn't be so busy playing high pulse poker all the time... ;-)

 

[lamorpa]

Not 5,000. It 50 MILLION! times the heat of the sun!!

 

[squidz66]

I want to know why he had to torch his neighbors?, and beyond!

 

[sparky2010]

well doesn't really matter how many times more or less powerful than the sun, it's pretty damn strong to instantly start burning things up.. as soon as they're in the focal point they instantly flame on!! so imagine walking by it by mistake... lol! whoops

 

[notzaar]

[citation][nom]oxxfatelostxxo[/nom]the sun is 15 million Celsius, est., if that thing could put out the same temp as the sun, there would be no video of stuff cooking, it would literally burn it all into ash the moment it touched, heck would prob even catch fire before it touched the beam.[/citation]The surface of the sun is about 5800K (a little more than 5500 Celcius).
Also, by "5000 more intense" he probably meant just that he amplified the intensity of the light by 5000, which makes sense. He redirected 5800 light beams (one with each mirror) onto one spot.

 

[Guest]

It works when you are at 1 foot away from it ...???

What is it good for then?

 

[nukemaster]

[citation][nom]daweinah[/nom]Someone needs to forward this to Mythbusters! They tried making one and failed.[/citation]
Actually they used a dish just like this and burned stuff the same way. The issue is at distance its very hard. Small scale was easy.

 

[Hupiscratch]

Now try this with that dishes used in large arrays of space signal detectors. It could melt the moon.

 

[Djhg2000]

[citation][nom]Kingkstur[/nom]Note to others: Light intensity doesn't = heat.[/citation]

No, but if it's infrared light then it's close enough.

 

[Guest]

The radiation intensity at the focal point is ≈ 5000 time the intensity of solar radiation where the collector is placed. It's not 5000 times hotter than the sun (in the core, at the "surface", or in the corona). It won't make solar cells more efficient. It's not a revolutionary or even slightly evolutionary new device. It's a parabola with some mirrors taped to it. It's good for burning ants.

 

[hythos]

Mirror-fragments work, but polishing the surface = win.
Attach simple optical sensors with servos to move / position the collector for optimum radiance...
Followed by affixing a prism connected to fiber-optics to the focalpoint = |>------ pew pew pew!
(only needing a way to shut it off LOL)

 

[hythos]

Technically it would be more like: ( (>----

(no edit-function 🙁 )

 

[andrewpmathias]

[citation][nom]daweinah[/nom]Someone needs to forward this to Mythbusters! They tried making one and failed.[/citation]


I just submitted it.

Click here for the link to the thread for a revisit on their forums.

Boy I sure hope they revisit it!!!

 

[scrumworks]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]He's building another one that will die a horrible dead in an even bigger fire.[/citation]

lol!

 

[PudgyChicken]

This was on gizmodo yesterday. Get with the times.

 

[amaroqwlf]

Just think, if we suddenly had 5000 suns the same distance away as our current one, the entire Earth would burst into flame just like the focal point of this device.

 

[gaborbarla]

This is pretty sad, and a quite lame.
Not sure why you would go through the trouble of tiny mirrors which are obviously out of focus. The focal point is more like a golf ball in this vid. What you need is a parabolic dish mirror.
Oh yeah and guy obviously means 5000 times the light of sun (in focal point, or focal golf ball) as compared to 1x light of the sun on your skin under normal sunlight. This would be erroneous as the mirror does not reflect all sunlight.

There was a program on TV recently where they had a huge parabolic dish mirror that could melt a large block of steel in a matter of seconds but the focal point was about 4 meters from the center and the guy had to wear protective gear as a drop might kill you.
Depending on the size of the mirror and the focal point you could actually create a small point in 3D space where there would be millions of lighrays. Why go with millions, when you go with BILLLIOONS. *Raises pinky to mouth.*

 

[bv90andy]

Tom's has set a new record, almost one year old news.

 

[FloKid]

It is the start of building the Death Star. Hope they get him sooner than later... But you always can hire Luke if things go as planed lol. : )

 

[guruofchem]

Gotta love a death ray with a focal length of 18" - it works great, so long as we can SNEAK up really, really close...

He did manage to get a reasonably tight focus for his beams, but there is literally nothing new under the sun here - the ancient Greeks did this without having satellite dishes to glue stuff to.