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Electronics

Here's what you need ... a Laser Gatling Gun

By Ben Coxworth
July 04, 2013
Here's what you need ... a Laser Gatling Gun
The Laser Gatling Gun features six burning lasers, and one aiming beam
The Laser Gatling Gun features six burning lasers, and one aiming beam
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The Laser Gatling Gun shoots a ring of laser light
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The Laser Gatling Gun shoots a ring of laser light
The Laser Gatling Gun features six burning lasers, and one aiming beam
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The Laser Gatling Gun features six burning lasers, and one aiming beam
The turret speed can be controlled using a knob on the underside of the gun, while four ball bearings keep that turret spinning relatively smoothly
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The turret speed can be controlled using a knob on the underside of the gun, while four ball bearings keep that turret spinning relatively smoothly
The motor and aiming laser are powered by eight AA batteries, and the six blue lasers run off four parallel 18650 lithium-ions
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The motor and aiming laser are powered by eight AA batteries, and the six blue lasers run off four parallel 18650 lithium-ions
View gallery - 4 images

Patrick Priebe, the German laser weapons hobbyist who previously brought us such creations as the Iron Man Gauntlet and the Plasma Cutter, has gone and made something else. This time around, he’s built a proof-of-concept Laser Gatling Gun.

The aluminum-bodied gun’s spinning turret features six blue 1.4-watt Class 4 lasers, supplied by Wicked Lasers. While these won’t stop a marauding robot, they will at least pop a balloon ... as long as the turret isn’t turning too fast. A 100-mW green laser is mounted to one side, to assist in aiming.

The turret speed can be controlled using a knob on the underside of the gun, while four ball bearings keep that turret spinning relatively smoothly. The motor and aiming laser are powered by eight AA batteries, and the six blue lasers run off four parallel 18650 lithium-ions.

The turret speed can be controlled using a knob on the underside of the gun, while four ball bearings keep that turret spinning relatively smoothly
The turret speed can be controlled using a knob on the underside of the gun, while four ball bearings keep that turret spinning relatively smoothly

Since running electrical wiring to a spinning turret could prove rather difficult, the blue lasers are instead triggered by radio remote control – a transmitter is in the main body of the gun, while a receiver is in the turret.

Fortunately for pretty much everyone, the Laser Gatling Gun isn’t for sale, and Priebe won’t share the plans. It can, however, be seen in use in the video below.

WICKED LASERS CANNON Prototype

View gallery - 4 images

Tags

ElectronicsLaser weaponDIYWicked LasersPatrick Priebe
10 comments
Ben Coxworth
Ben Coxworth
Based out of Edmonton, Canada, Ben Coxworth has been writing for New Atlas since 2009 and is presently Managing Editor for North America. An experienced freelance writer, he previously obtained an English BA from the University of Saskatchewan, then spent over 20 years working in various markets as a television reporter, producer and news videographer. Ben is particularly interested in scientific innovation, human-powered transportation, and the marine environment.

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10 comments
Slowburn
This is far sillier than his usual fare.
Foiled
Agreed, Slowburn, but even though the Gatling gun spins around so the barrels can have some time to be cooled down and maintain a high firing rate, which means that only one turret is firing at a time, despite that this is "only good enough to cause eye injury and pop balloons".. Despite those things.. GIIIEEEFF!!! Just one that shoots coloured light! Nothing more!
cfg83
Looks like it would be great in a movie ... if *everyone* had eye protection on the set.
Dekarate
Sort of pointless, isn't it? Gatling guns were to provide a hailstorm of bullets to make up for accuracy errors in hitting targets and to provide overwhelming power on a small area. A single laser does the same. Redundancy and spinning the beams in this case provides neither effect. Makes about as much sense as a Gatling gun shotgun.
Expanded Viewpoint
What a worthless piece of JUNK!!! It's not only a noisy POS, but it doesn't do anything more than just one hand held laser would! Big whoop. Oooo, I'm just soooo damn impressed that he's keeping the plans a "secret", as if nobody else in the whole world could ever duplicate his waste of time and money quite so well. He would have been MUCH smarter to have arranged the lasers in a bundle and pointed them down into a parabolic mirror, and had the reflected beam come back up the center of the bundle. Then he would have had a lot more power if they were all on at the same time, and he could have cut down the duty cycle to get the same effect. But I bet that a lot of 13 year old gamers are just creaming their jeans thinking about owning one of these. Randy
Mr E
When we built a "three-barrel" laser 50 years ago it was because we couldn't get a single laser to fire fast enough. We needed three pulses per second from a neodymium/glass laser and couldn't get rid of the heat fast enough. We couldn't get enough coolant through a single laser head to remove the heat. Each laser had an input pulse energy of several thouand joules. At one shot per second that's several thousands watts. Of course about 98% of that was heat that had to be removed.
When we began using neodymium doped YAG material for the laser rod we could run them a little hotter.
I've had some good jobs in my engineering career but working for a laser company in the sixties tops them all. In 1961, when I started, not very many people had even heard of a laser.
kellory
It's a drone killer! If that doesn't take out the security drones spying on lawful Americans, then there is little hope for any shred of privacy remaining.
Slowburn
re; Dekarate
You do the Gatling scatter gun an injustice. It is great for strafing infantry.
Tacky-on
I'll take one if I can get the optional shark-head mount. These things are really only useful if you can put them on a fricken shark's head.
JumpingSpidersAreCute
anyone complaining about it being a dumb idea is just as dumb as they think this is,
for one, its six spinning lasers with a really cool hull.
two, even if its not realistic, its cooler than having one laser, its cooler than having six individual lasers,
three, this way he can use all of them at once.
four, you cant say shit about whether its realistic or not because a legitimate killing version of it hasnt even been invented yet.
five, its a work of art that resembles HIS PERSONAL IDEA of some sort of laser weapon, not your personal idea of some sort of laser weapon.
six, he spent a hellova lot of time and effort into smashing seven super expensive store-bought lasers into one idea and
seven, made a spitting image of something all us future weapon fanatics dream about having hidden away in some secret compartment, some laser weapon from the mind of an undercover genius such as who he is implying to be by building this. or perhaps something a soldier would use in a future war.
eight, even if in reality, making the lasers would be a bad idea, in his idea the spinning effect gave it a more consistent damage area.
nine, im sure he would have them work more so like fallout 3's gatling laser if he could but that would first off require new programming in the lasers themselves,
ten, its cool as fuck,
eleven, hes a hobbyist, if you were such a hobbyist, what would you do with seven super expensive lasers and his skill level?