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Germany: Hobbyist creates laser "Gatling gun" with six rotating 1.4 W blue beams

Well-known master builder Patrick Priebe has created a laser with six 1.4 watt blue lasers that rotate, similar to a Gatling gun. In addition, there is a 100 milliwatt green laser used for aiming:

Patrick Priebe laser Gatling gun

There is no “practical” use for Priebe’s handheld, battery-powered laser gun, and there is no inherent need to have the blue lasers rotate -- except that it looks very impressive. (Gatling’s original invention fired a bullet only once per rotation from each barrel. In contrast, Priebe’s device uses continuous-wave lasers that are always on as they rotate.)

It took about 300 hours to create the device, which was sponsored by Wicked Lasers, who also supplied the seven lasers. According to Priebe, who admits that the laser is “totally senseless,” the laser array and the rotation was created as an interesting challenge.

A YouTube video shows the completed laser, and ends with a segment where 26 balloons are being popped at close range. During the popping sequence the lasers are not rotated; according to Priebe, this is because the rotation batteries ran out. He stated that it is possible to pop balloons even when the beams are being rotated (and thus the beam power is spread out over more area).



From YouTube via Gizmodo. Additional projects are at Patrick Priebe’s Laser Gadgets website.