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#5719
Why use halogen when you can defuse laser beam light to be headlights of any color including clear white light. You could make laser beam flash lights or house lights, lamp lights, night lights, or any other light source.

Why not make TV's or computer screens with laser light, full spectrum laser beam light, advancing the resolution and brightening the colors. Prisms difuse any light into full spectrum light. You could run them under your car or have rainbow colored lights in your car or out side your car in the exterior lights. Lasers come in lots of colors, even clear, and are very bright and can travel a very long distance lengthening the distance which you could see in the dark at night on the road or get noticed better in the day.

Reward: Credit
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By Steve
#5848
I'm not an expert in lasers - do they use more or less energy than "conventional" light? Also, it's a really bad idea to look directly into a laser - would that problem be diffused with a diffused laser? :-?
By AaronBurns
#5860
I believe lasers take less electricity and as for looking into a laser, any common laser does no damage to your eye at all. Even most Industrial lasers pose no danger to your eyes. I used to work where we had one and we would all have to walk by it and I asked about the danger of lasers to the eye from the resident military expert and he said it was perfectly safe to look into.
By Lewis
#5970
Problem with lasers in this application is that they have a very narrow beam; I'm sure you've seen one in use. An automobile or transportation vehicle needs a wide or diffuse beam to illuminate a wide area, the wider the better. The idea is not completely bad because automobile beams need to be directionally directed, for which a laser is perfect.

My idea of a perfect automobile beam is one that brightly illuminates a wide area without blinding on-coming drivers; halogens are bright, but do blind on-coming drivers (I don't like them). Vehicles with highly placed lamps are really irritating: jacked up pickups and SUVs.

The technology exists: square beam lamps or specially shaped lamps (wide flat) placed low on the vehicle are better suited to the wide bright concept but are not in style.
By asbestosfriend
#6206
Yes laser ARE bad for the eyes, that is why there are mandated warnings that must be applied to each laser.

What you might want in it's stead is a super bright LED. They are used in optical mice for computers. Many people get confused and say that they have a laser mouse when in fact the first laser mouse came out not too long ago. But then the lights would still be in peoples eyes... so, not so good...

Besides, you would need more power to view the area that the car needs to see as the beam would have to be so diffused and strengthened.

Sorry, I hate raining on peoples parades. I hope I'm wrong.
:)
By AaronBurns
#6212
Actaully, lasers that are hand held have very small batteries that last for a very long time and with an alternator, power supplies are not a problem. Also, lasers are very small. A halogen lamp is very large.
When you diffuse a laser through a prism like glass structure what you have is an omni directional light that is no longer a laser but, just a very bright light and is harmless.
When I spoke to man who uses industrial lasers he said that most, if not all, damage too the eyes by lasers is mostly hype and you would have to carelessly stare into an industrial sized laser for a long period of time before suffering any blank spots. Hopefully they would go away.
But, the main point is that what you start with is an efficient and small laser and amplify the difussed light which is no longer a laser and you have a more brighter and less expensive head light.
I think that the real genius behind lasers would be to use them to back light a Television Screen for optimal color and resolution.
A greater color array than LED's or Plasma. I want a Laser TV now.
And they would be cheaper to make.
By asbestosfriend
#6215
I think you are right burns, but the thing is, you WOULD be staring at the laser light constantly on the highway for hours on end due to oncoming traffic.

I guess the only way to know for sure whether it were safe or not would be to test it!

I hope it does pan out because I think it's a good idea.
By Rishi
#6224
Laser light has two main characteristics.
First, it is coherent; that is, all the emitted waves are in perfect synchronisation. Second, it is paralllel; thatis, it is non-linear and the inverse square law of intensity and distance does not apply.

Neither of which is really needed for auto headlamps. Ofcourse, the light is bright. It is bright simply because it is a tight beam. The moment it is diffused this advantage will be diminished in proportion to the extent of diffusion. Also, it requires an enormous amount of energy to pump up a laser. Only a small amount is released in the beam. In that sense a halogen lamp is more efficient.

But the burden of the idea is to minimise energy lost as heat, which is a very good thing.

May be a combination of laser and Super Bright LED in the form of Laser LEDs can be thought of. Lower power versions of these are already in use as traffic lights.

Rishi
By AaronBurns
#6225
There are different strenths and types of lasers.
The strength and type of laser needed for a head lamp is very small and would take less electricity than a halogen.
The only type of laser that emits heat is one made for other purposes; Industrial or Scientific.
You can diffuse this light with any shaped clear glass object and it's light will turn from laser beam to just bright, standard, light.
You see if you use a pyrimid shape (Or prism) or orb you can have an omni-directional or a light that can just be very bright, not a laser, and is still directed simply with a silver backing like a halogen.
Were not trying to cut steel in half. Just make a brighter light.
What you need to do is look at the common hand held laser that emits no heat and look at the tiny batteries in it and then read that you can use it for years without changing it or at least hours beyond standard products like CD Players.
I never wore mine out.
And it only takes a small laser to match the light of a halogen.
The only reason it is not used is that lasers are slightly more costly (Not much) and the conversion would be new.
In other words; most people are happy with the way things are and that's why were here. Simply to change their minds.
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By Michael D. Grissom
#6987
Have you seen the new infra-red headlamp system that creates a display or heads-up display within the vehicle? Looks almost like it's daylight outside --> very impressive. I foresee the day when standard headlamps will only be needed so that other cars can more easily identify you as a car or in the event of infra-red failure. Oncoming infra-red equipped vehicle lamps are identified by the computer and dimmed in your heads-up display.

But then, I also foresee the day when genetic engineers will give us wings so that we no longer need our cars. ;-D ;-D ;-D
By AaronBurns
#6998
If you believe in bio-engineering then, read my post on the Shipwrecked Theories Forum.
It should clear up the truth!
Ooooowwwwww! An X-File!
Have Fun!
O:-)
By BILLT
#8278
You said, “Why not make TV's or computer screens with laser light, full spectrum laser beam light, advancing the resolution and brightening the colors. Prisms difuse any light into full spectrum light. You could run them under your car or have rainbow colored lights in your car or out side your car in the exterior lights.”

Laser light, by its very definition, is coherent, therefore monochromatic, or consisting of a single wavelength and all wavefronts are in phase. When you said that “…Prism’s difuse any light into full spectrum light..”, yes it will split any non-coherent, full spectrum light source into its component colors, but all a prism will do to a laser beam is to redirect it like a mirror might, as the laser beam is made up of only one color/wavelength. Yes they have many different, single color, lasers out there, but I am unaware of any such thing as a full spectrum, multiple-wavelength laser as this would simply be a light bulb and not a laser. Sure they can change the gasses inside tube lasers to make different colors, but I don’t believe that they’ve succeeded in doing this “on-the-fly” and they certainly can’t produce multiple wavelengths simultaneously.

You can diffuse or un-focus a laser beam with various lenses and/or gratings but then you lose the intensity that it had as a laser beam in the first place and it would require much, much greater power to even approach anything close to the brightness of the non-diffused beam. And what would be the point by then as all you’d have is an extra expensive non-coherent light source.

Perform this experiment if you want to test out your ideas for practicality, get a simple battery powered laser pointer and a diffusion lens of some sort. Go outside when it’s very dark. Turn on the laser pointer and point it perhaps 200 yards in front of you. Of course you will be able to see the point of light off in the distance, but can you see anything lit up around that point of light? Then put the diffusion lens in front of the pointer and turn it on again. Point it at the same point 200 yards out, or even 10 feet away. I’ll bet you can’t even see the beam land on the ground let alone illuminate it sufficiently to see by while driving.
By sk8mad85
#8332
some car lights now have LED lights in them. these are more powerful than regular lights and last longer.
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