When it comes to wishing one could be a superhero, tech geeks seem to gravitate toward Iron Man over heroes like Superman. Perhaps it’s in part due to Tony Stark’s charismatic-yet-geeky personality, but I’m sure it’s mostly due to the Iron Man armor.
Packed with high tech gadgets and shined to perfection, it’s pretty much like living inside a computer and a tank all at once. Oh, and it has lasers; one can’t forget the lasers. Iron Man cosplay isn’t complete without the glowing blue arc reactor in his chest, and many go the extra mile by including the repulsor rays on the palms. In this find from Techeblog, Patrick Priebe goes an extra, extra mile by creating his own repulsor ray which uses a real 445nm 1W laser beam.
In many ways, this could be considered an actual weapon, so don’t expect to show off this sort of tech at a comic convention. A 1W laser beam like this can easily (and quickly) blind a person permanently and even catch certain objects on fire. The design doesn’t run down along the wrist as one might expect, but it’s also not powered by a miniature reactor implanted in the designer’s chest, so there’s that. Instead, a C-shape of brass was first crafted as a housing, one which would easily fit in the palm, wrap around one side of the hand, and encase the power pack on the back of the hand. It would appear there’s a button behind the middle finger, so extending the finger backwards causes the bright blue beam to activate. You can also see that the video’s version of the device is even cooler looking, with LEDs or holes in the casing giving added blue light to the ring. The only thing missing would be sound effects like the ones added to the video of this Dead Space Plasma Cutter.
As mentioned previously, this laser isn’t just decorative and benign. It won’t be blasting 6-inch wide holes in solid steel like Iron Man’s repulsor rays or provide propulsion for flight, but the video shows that it can pop balloons almost instantly and cause some material to smoke (and likely catch fire with enough exposure). For some more Iron Man costume goodness, don’t miss these Iron Man and War Machine Costumes or this Steampunk Iron Man Costume.
