The Laserpod
posted Nov 23rd 2004 1:37PM
It's a little on the swinging bachelor pad tip, but for the past week or so we've been spending our evenings with the Laserpod. We're still waiting for someone to sell an ultra inexpensive home laser dealy that'll let us reproduce the shows they used to do during classic rock night at the Laserium in San Francisco (mainly lots of laser guitars and UFOs and stuff like that while you listened to Bowie and Zeppelin), but at a hundred bucks, the Laserpod will have to do. It's basically a red laser (well, three to be exact) with a bunch of LEDs that refract through a crystal that you can project onto your wall or ceiling so that things can get properly psychedelic (or you can leave that weird plastic thing on if you want more of an executive desk toy type thing). We'd go on and on about what it looks like, but just check out the pics, ok?
Straight on into the eye of the Laserpod. Don’t do this with your human eyes.
(Pics of the laser show by Jill Fehrenbacher of InternalLandscape. Our
camera was too crappy to do it justice.)
have people bought this? is it cool/worth 108?
in the first pic looks too much like a , uh lets just say sex toy.
did a search for videos for this, found some I4-U site or something but didn't have videos of it on the ceiling (but did have one with the cover on) if anyone else finds some that would be cool- i imagine ill probably be able to look at one of these in a US mall soon
maybe the images dont accurately portray how cool it looks but you can get laser light show things for 50 bucks that will form designs and follow the music etc whereas this one looks like 4 dots...
of course this one looks cooler than the ufo looking 50 dollar ones
how about using a green laser from thinkgeek.com and pointing it (strapped to a tripod or something) onto an old bare speaker, with some rubber stretched over the rim, with a small mirror glued in the center. ramp up the bass, and bingo, 80's disco fevah! ;)
Back in 1988 or so a colleague of mine built something that with a little additional clever hacking could have been turned into one of those planetarium rock show laser gadgets. He tore a laser out of a discarded, broken laser printer. He mounted small mirrors at very slight angles to the ends of the shafts of two small electric motors. The speed of motors was controlled by trigger rheostats from a toy car racing kit. He pointed the laser at one mirror such that the beam would be reflected onto the second mirror and from there onto a wall. At certain pairs of motor speeds you would get spirograph-like patterns. It was a way cool hack.
Back in 1988 or so a colleague of mine built something that with a little additional clever hacking could have been turned into one of those planetarium rock show laser gadgets. He tore a laser out of a discarded, broken laser printer. He mounted small mirrors at very slight angles to the ends of the shafts of two small electric motors. The speed of motors was controlled by trigger rheostats from a toy car racing kit. He pointed the laser at one mirror such that the beam would be reflected onto the second mirror and from there onto a wall. At certain pairs of motor speeds you would get spirograph-like patterns. It was a way cool hack.
i've had this link for awhile. every few days it tells me to order it already and take the link off my desktop.
i haven't done it yet... because i'm still not sure if it is in fact $108 cool. from the pics i'm thinking more like $65 cool.
I was motivated by this story to build a laser spirograph (see my previous post). The results can be seen at:
http://www.ericgardner.com/laser_spirograph.html
can be seen at:
http://www.glowgadgets.co.uk
Why waste $100?
Get a laser pointer for $2, and tape a piece of reflective mylar (DO NOT USE ALUMINUM FOIL) to your speekers (tape it down firmly, as the vibrating mylar will sound awful).
Point the laser at the mylar. done.
For more than one speaker, repeat the process. the result is lots of fun at parties. But your guests will kill you if the mylar comes loose.
What I really want though is a cheap mirror head to draw actuall computer controlled shapes with. (that's more like $10k)
I finally found a movie of the laserpod, pretty cool:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4342207706&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
I found it for $85 at generate (http://www.gnr8.biz/laserpodpromo.html).
I just found it cheaper on another website, $84. I know it's only a dollar less than Generate, but this website is based in the US, so I won't risk getting my order delayed in customs. I just ordered this afternoon... I'll let everyone know how fast I get my order.
Here's the website:
http://dryiceonline.com/laserpod.cfm
I ordered one last week from here: www.laserpodusa.com (free shipping) and it only took three days. Christmas gift for my bro, so I don't want to break the seal and open it but I'll let you know what I think after christmas!
I posted here last week, but it looks like it didn't show up.
I also ordered the damned thing right before I posted. That was December 1st.
I got an email saying it shipped UPS ground - 5 business days guaranteed, but they didn't give me a tracking number.
It's been 5 business days and I still don't have it. They did show the correct address in the confirmation email I got.
I'm not really a patient person. I'll give them a chance to respond to the email I sent before I cry foul though.
Excellent pictures of the Laserpod! I've got one and I lurve it!
Excellent pictures of the Laserpod! I've got one and I lurve it!
I never saw this thing before... I have a LaserVibe, got it at http://www.laservibe.com/
What's cool about this one is that it does not just make the typical spirograh images, it actual moves the laser around to the beat of the music.