German laser weapons hobbyist Patrick Priebe, the creator of such one-off curiosities as the Iron Man Gauntlet and the Crysis 2-inspired Gauss Rifle, has now gone and made a laser rifle. While it won't bring down a storm trooper or an alien facehugger, it'll make short work of things like wood, Styrofoam and glass.
The mostly aluminum-bodied 12-lb (5.4-kg) rifle incorporates a 7-watt infrared burning laser, along with a 2-milliwatt red aiming laser. Power comes from an 18-volt rechargeable battery pack converted to run at 12,000 volts, while a 12-volt pump circulates one liter of distilled water to help keep things cool. An LCD screen indicates when the temperature of that water is getting too high (28ºC/82ºF), at which point the gun has to stop shooting things for a while.
Priebe tells us that the rifle seems to work best at a distance of about four meters (13 ft) from its target. It took him about 250 hours to build and as usual, no, he won't sell you one ... which is a good thing.
It can be seen burning and melting things in the video below.
Source: Laser Gadgets by Patrick Priebe
