The massive pulsed ruby laser is complete! In this video I'm feeding the flashlamp about 13kJ, which is a ton of electrical energy. In fact, this is probably the strongest ruby laser on YouTube. More destruction to come soon!

BIG thank you to Esco Optics for making me the mirrors for the laser. It turns out that finding mirrors that don't vaporize in a massive laser cavity like this is difficult, but coming up with the right coating was no problem for the Esco engineers.
escooptics.com

social media sillyness:
instagram:   / styro.drake  
patreon:   / styropyro  

In this video I quickly go over the construction of this laser, and then do a few test shots with some plastic, a razor blade, and a glass bottle. The peak output power on this laser is around 50kW.

Wanna see just how terrifying that power supply is? See it destroy stuff in this video:    • Terrifying Pulsed Laser Power Supply ...  

The power supply uses a variac for adjustable voltage and feeds that into a pair of matched microwave oven transformers, From there the output is fed into a homemade Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier, which is capable of up to 20kV at a dangerously high current. That feeds into the capacitor bank, and then the laser can be fired using a trigger based on a car ignition coil and 555/MOSFET combo.