COLA is PERFECT for lowering a laser's power!?!

Lasers are just getting stronger and stronger, but sometimes you want to lower the laser beam's power. For example when measuring beam divergence or setting up an optical system safely.
In this video, I will test some of my viewers' suggestions for lowering a laser beam's power. Including using my favorite drink: cola!
Will it work? Will it even be the best choice?
My Patreon-page: / brainiac75
Testing power loss with ND filter and worn or rechargeable batteries: • Are lasers safer with ...
Testing candles near magnets: • Monster magnet meets f...
Testing lasers near magnets: • Monster magnet meets m...
Did you miss one of my videos?: / brainiac75
FULL MUSIC CREDITS
Time codes: 0:01 + 6:08
"Darkness is Coming" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1100584
Made loopable by me.
Time codes: 0:38 + 7:15
"Neo Western" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1100615
Time codes: 1:36 + 8:28
"Clear Waters" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1100290
Time code: 3:46
"Perspectives" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1300027
Time codes: 6:17 + 7:58 + 9:29
"Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1600018
All music above licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Time code: 9:01
Mix of two tracks:
1) The Shimmering by fran_ky (freesound.org/s/237363)
Licensed under Creative Commons 0 license
2) "Spacial Harvest" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
ISRC: USUAN1100653
#Cola #Laser #Brainiac75

[@glenngriffon8032]

Well it would be a real shame to damage or destroy that filter but I have to know how strong a beam it takes to burn through it. I vote for stress test. +1

[@brainiac75]

Noted. I am curious too. How strong a beam will it handle on the same spot for some time without the beam burning through? I honestly don't know. The plastic filter did poorly. It wasn't even held steady :)

[@n-steam]

@@brainiac75 I would hate to see such an expensive filter get destroyed. I think maybe you should test with an ordinary piece of glass painted black, and test that by shining the light through the non-painted side. If that cracks I think it's almost a given that your filter would break. Then you can decide whether you want to lose it or not.

[@neoverload8685]

@@brainiac75 Well i'm sure you already know the result, localised heating in glass has no good outcome like dissipating heat in a small volume of material always leads to a magic smoke or meltdown. Anyway i'm curious about high powered laser in cola should be interesting ;)

[@maaauel]

@@brainiac75 i am really curious about what material is put on the glass to assemble the varable ND-Filter. if it's graphite, i'd suggest that it won't be harmed for a looong time, while you up the power of the lasers :) PS: i do love to be lazy and not do research theoretical stuff, since there's giys like you out there, who make it possible to see the outcome of things (i can't afford) having an impact to things (i don't have access to) ❤️🍪

[@ThomasAndersonbsf]

I have some that I paid very little on ebay for (special clip for a canon powershot that you can't remove the lens it just has two ridges sticking out the ends to put their converter ring on it, so regular DSL lenses can be added) I would opt for getting one of those (like 5 bucks and you probably get a UV filter, IR filter ect for different effects, that you could stress test them on, all in glass material rather than being plastic, knowing how far a cheap one will go, I would guess 10 to 25% higher energy before destruction for a very expensive one, as for flatness and lacking deformities I honestly have seen next to no difference in my cheap ones and the very expensive ones I have that a friend ran an electron microscope over to see how flat each was,

[@OverUnity7734]

Hard drive platters from a broken hard drive may make a cheep and effective front surface mirror .

[@brainiac75]

Interesting thought. They are incredible flat. I wonder how high their reflectance is, but in this case we want low reflectance. Thanks for the suggestion - calls for some experimentation in a future video :D

[@vaelophisnyx9873]

@@brainiac75 they're not too dissimilar to house mirrors, only ~80%. The bigger issue is a soft brown tint they have in the visible spectrum

[@Benoit-Pierre]

@@brainiac75 very low reflectance, I'd say 90-80%. Good idea.

[@GRBtutorials]

@@vaelophisnyx9873 Well, the tint shouldn’t matter much as lasers are almost monochromatic, it just means it’ll attenuate some wavelengths more than others. So I’d say it could be a good idea then.

[@timanderson5717]

@@brainiac75 If I hold my platters up to the sun, some light is transmitted. Maybe you could use them to attenuate the beam by reflecting most of the light away and only take the transmitted light.

[@litigioussociety4249]

It would be interesting to see you test different colored sodas in a future episode. Blue, Red, and Green Mountain Dew for example.

[@Quickened1]

Kool Aid!

[@FreshBeatles]

at that point, you might aswell just use dye

[@Quickened1]

@@FreshBeatles Koolaid would be cheaper...lol

[@Cacowninja]

Did we meet before on a lot of ancap videos?

[@litigioussociety4249]

@@Cacowninja Probably. I consider myself an ancap, but I usually use the term voluntaryist. I find the words "voluntary association" are easier for ignoramuses to understand.

[@genshineditsjoon]

"Cola laser filter" Sounds funny, but it really works

[@crimsonhalo13]

> "Laser Dilda" That's one letter away from being mauled by the KZbin algorithms.

[@GQuack]

I agree on stress-testing the ND filter. I'm curious myself, since for how expensive you claimed it to be, it better withstand some harsh conditions.

[@vvv331]

"Mmm, cola foam" *COCACOLA ESPUMA-* Impressive video, this is why i watch so much science videos

[@antongolovko1149]

Happy to see that my idea worked :) It's interesting to see how much the beam split

[@lethalogicax2474]

Love the thorough scientific approach! Great job on the video! Id both love to see and be terrified to see what kind of laser it takes to overwhelm that variable ND filter!

[@brainiac75]

Thanks! I am just an amateur but try to account for all factors etc. in an experiment. Not always easy x) I am curious too about how much power a photography variable ND will handle. It is a nice and convenient solution and I would love if it can handle up to say 1500 mW at the same spot for a prolonged time. My gut feeling just is that it won't... I will need to experiment with it and share the results in a future video. Stay tuned :)

[@ShahZahid]

tho i dont think the cola would be ideal for ir, cuz cola is pretty much transparent to ir edit: you have mentioned that in the video, nice also styropyro showed in his ir laser blaster video how cola looks under ir and its pretty much transparent

[@brainiac75]

Yep, it does let some infrared through. I will test it with infrared lasers and other colors in a future video, so stay tuned and thanks for watching!

[@keithyinger3326]

@@brainiac75 Nice! I was just going to suggest that. Testing with other color lasers, and other color sodas to see if any soda blocked more IR than another.

[@float32]

I think the bigger problem with cola is that it spontaneously disappears!

[@branislavradojevic7898]

who will win an expensive variable ND or *a glass-full amount of cola*

[@Andrew90046zero]

6:46 That is an A+ Out Of Context Moment

[@sum_rye_hash_321]

Stress Test! Plus Dirac's 3 polarizer problem, introduce a third polarizer and due to quantum effects there is more light able to come thru! Very cool science im sure you'll love it!

[@EdwinWiles]

I tried that in high school, my thought back then was light is affected by magnetic fields, so the middle filter had to be rotating the light my magnetism. Boy did I have a lot to learn.

[@valdrich472]

How about making a 'cola wedge' that could be slid in and out based on how bright you want the Lazer to be. Or maybe a cola stair might be better if the beam is too wide

[@SgtFvMC]

Love these professional Wäscheklammern at 2:50 . Thaught i was the only one using that on my lasers 🤣🤣

[@spacedaway]

Thanks a lot for considering our suggestion to undervolt the board, Brian. To be honest, I suggested underclocking as a joke, didn't know it was possible, haha.

[@reggiep75]

Test to see if the raw E150(d) colouring (that most dark soft drinks are coloured with) will attenuate the laser beam and how much is required.

[@martine-e-dee]

Hey! Nice to see you back!

[@sulfie46]

Have no Idea why this video didn't show in my feed. Im glad i found it!

[@AshlynnTheFennec]

it is great to see you posting again you should try the hercules laser with the cola filter :)

[@sherrymaloner8843]

Day is always better when I can learn sth new from you!

[@lukedavis436]

how one man foiled the governments entire Laser weapon system using bravery and a bottle of his favorite beverage

[@Saabafton]

Great video!

[@Kellysg126]

Yesss! A new brainiac video :))

[@theschnilser7962]

The idea of using Cola for this purpose is rather unusual but interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that. After watching Styropyro's video on the "IR Death Ray", the absorption of higher wavelength light was to be expected, as it is transparent, seen through an IR camera. And for the obvious part, it looks dark red to the naked eye. Also thanks for featuring my comment and others containing these creative ideas! It's always nice to see some community involvement.

[@viniciusnoyoutube]

Nice video!

[@FlyingHosenlander]

cool experiment! A standard method to have a variable attenuation on a high power laser bundle is to use a polarizing beamsplitter. One polarization gets transmitted, the other is reflected at some angle. That reflected beam is caught by a beam blocker that can handle the heat/power. Now you can use a half wave plate in front of the beamsplitter to rotate the incoming polarization and thereby control the transmission/reflection ratio. The polarization of the transmitted beam through the beamsplitter does not change, only the power is affected. But of course cola is a much cheaper solution :)

[@n-steam]

If you plan to use your highest powered lasers in the next cola experiment, can you also measure if the cola temperature changes?

[@brainiac75]

No doubt, that the temperature of the cola rises since it absorbs the energy of the laser beam. But even a 1 watt laser can only warn with 1 watt of energy, so unless the cola amount is small, I believe it will just radiate the heat to the room with little temperature rise in the cola. But sure is worth an attempt with a small/shallow amount of cola. And thanks for the great suggestion once again :D

[@n-steam]

@@brainiac75 It only takes 4.2J to raise 1ml of water by 1C. A 250mW laser would get there in ~20 seconds. I thought would be interesting to know what happens after ~20 minutes. I am thinking there would be a few degrees C difference on one side compared to the other.

[@SamTheBattleshipp]

Who knew cola could have a safety use? Really cool video!

[@J0sh00]

Now I know why I always see a second or third reflection on some mirrors. That's cool to know

[@cavemandanwilder5597]

I bet you could water cool the glass ND filter to make it less susceptible to damage from powerful lasers. Just drop the filter into a flat-sided optically clear container full of water (or soda I guess lol), and then shine the beam through it all. I can’t imagine why the water would prevent the filter from doing its job, and it should carry away excess heat pretty effectively.

[@tissuepaper9962]

I think it would be interesting to try filling the cavity between the two filters with mineral oil or water or something else to conduct heat evenly across the whole filter. I think it would be enough to just spread the heat around, rather than going through all the effort of transporting it away.

[@ColaTai]

Very good video

[@dickJohnsonpeter]

I just ordered very similar glass camera polarizing filters to experiment with.

[@sebat246]

Nice video

[@Graeme_Lastname]

There's all sorts of strange effects you can get with liquids, magnetic and electric fields etc. and you're well equipped to explore some of them. New sub. You could use the partial reflection that occurs when shining the laser through flat glass. At least you would avoid heating the glass. The vast majority is either transmitted or reflected so power would be less of a problem. You'd have to be unlucky for the glass to have an absorption band at the frequency of the laser. That sort of thing only happens to me. :)

[@ZerqTM]

i am amazed you still have cd cases... that is like a relic from a bygone age :p

[@Razgriz_One]

you missed out on saying "i'll pour the flat cola on a flat container for maximum flatness"

[@Iliek]

I'm glad he didn't say that.

[@freddotu]

You may be able to locate front surface mirrors inside discarded rear projection televisions. It's the type of a television with substantial depth to the cabinet, with the mirror about as large as a small table. I've rescued a number of them from the rubbish pickup. A bonus inside is three large diameter convex lenses.

[@user-cm1gk3nq2l]

Nice.

[@auntied4950]

Oh yes to stress-test! Just don't burn a hole in your pocket! Great video as always !

[@WilburJaywright]

The man found a scientific reason to point lasers at a soft drink. Love it!

[@tranceemerson8325]

ah.. 2 of my favorite things. MacGyver approved. Lasers and Coca Cola.

[@BenjaminGoldberg1]

To reduce the risk of damaging the nice glass polarizing filter when stress testing, try sending the laser through a convex lens to spread the laser across most of the lens's surface, and more lenses to narrow it afterward.

[@reggiep75]

Brainiac75: Attenuates lasers with random stuff. Styropyro: Watches and makes Coca-Cola and ND filter glasses.

[@Tux.Penguin]

The cola filter is interesting. It makes sense that red laser passes through cola better than green. If you shine a bright light through cola it will look reddish to your eyes because red light shines through.

[@h7opolo]

i vote for the stress-testing of the nd filter via laser light.

[@brainiac75]

Looks like I need to test it, based on the feedback already. I do want to know it too. If it can handle my strongest lasers, it is an easy and compact solution. Thanks for watching!

[@h7opolo]

@@brainiac75 50/50 chance at this point. thanks for replying!

[@mckseal]

You could build you own variable ND with two circular polarised filters available online for $20. They have threading so they can stack. However: Cheap ones may not be uniform. Probably won't be made of glass unlike the $100+ Variable NDs. Bonus: GoPro circ pol filters are roughly the right size to mount to the front of a laser pointer. But don't stack. I wonder if there's a small diameter stackable one out there so you could make it convenient and handheld!

[@randolphvance8889]

Now we need to see what effect Mountain Dew has!

[@TheHectorOg]

Nice, I sometimes use the optics lab in my university, but here we don't have a lot of equipment, when in need, I use some Chinese polarizing lenses. Nice one on the Coke, I may use it with quartz containers next Time.

[@brainiac75]

It should be possible to get polarizing filters rated for laser use, but I'm not sure I want to know about the price ;) I did look for a glass container, but the one shown (a polystyrene display case for 'toy' models) was what I could find in a hurry. I will look for some quartz containers online for future use. Thanks for watching!

[@truy7399]

Finally a way to determine which is better Coca-Cola or Pepsi

[@Quickened1]

Dr. Pepper...

[@adnanabdillahghifari720]

Crazy idea here

[@TiSapph]

In the lab we usually use a λ/2 waveplate and a polarising beam splitter cube. You could also just rotate the cube, which has the advantage that you don't need the expensive and wavelength dependent waveplate, but then of course the direction of the reflected beam will change too. These cubes aren't all that cheap though... Also, proper metalized mirrors aren't all that expensive. You can get thin 1inch protected aluminium, gold, and silver mirrors from Thorlabs for like 15€. Their thicker standard mirrors are around 30-40€. They also sell ok-ish mirror mounts for similar money, but I prefer the ones from RadientDyes.

[@Zenodilodon]

Very interesting video, I wouldn't of thought to use a liquid for attenuation but yeah you can dump some serious power into it and it's not going to care. I do think using dye is better for 2 reasons. It won't spoil and you can more evenly balance the color blocking effect. My other thought is you would be able to change the thickness of the filter vertically by changing depth. Maybe have one mirror under the container shooting the laser beam up and through a glass bottom. Some sort of syringe coupled to the container to change the fluid level and another mirror above the fluid to direct the beam forward ( relative to the input beam like a para scope ). It's a little bit of kit to set up but once done it's also easy to maintain. If your interested I am up to chat on a simple design people could replicate.

[@JustinKoenigSilica]

That's the power of the Lambert-Beer law, baby!

[@cryptonein]

Very interesting. Now that you've managed to dial back the power level itself, how about shifting (lowering) the wavelength such that you drop, for example, near ultraviolet or blue lasers down into another area of the spectrum such as (near-)UV to blue or blue to green or green to orange or red? Apparently Carl Zeiss was doing this at some point late in his career and it would be fascinating to see it repeated. It was something that never seemed to be reproduced reliably (documented properly) since.

[@jansenart0]

Hey, seltzer is popular in Germany and around there. Is there any difference between that and water?

[@vishva8kumara]

You could use lenses to expand the beam and then collimate back and use polarizing filter where the beam is wide. This should minimize burning and utilize the whole surface of the filter.

[@cringemaki]

Brainiac's next experiments will be: "Making cola filled laser protection glasses" and "Can we stop the Death star's death laser by using a pool filled with cola?"

[@gusmartin6053]

The optical approach is interesting and fun but attenuating the output of a laser can be done fairly easily with electronics. All you need is a variable current limiter. You can buy little power supply modules online that allow you to adjust voltage and a current limit using two multi turn trim pots.

[@Adventist9917]

Now to make some cola glasses. 😎

[@EduardoRohdeEras]

Will you test the cola in a future video or in a filter video? I'm confused now 😂

[@cryodoctor8857]

For the more younger people who still aren't sure how the mirrors not being 'first surface' mirrors, heres a quick point. Refraction is when light bends while passing through two transparent substances. For example, water is a lot more dense than air, so when a LASER's light passes through the water from the air, it bends slightly when looking at the beam. I honestly suggest looking it up, as well as Total Internal Reflection because its incredibly interesting.

[@aNobleLlama]

I feel like if you were to combine the cone with an unilluminatable room design, you'd get crazy abosorbtion rates. I could think of some ways of pulling this off if you want to revisit this.

[@eyedrz]

Whether the polarizing filter is made of glass or plastic, they are both laminates with a plastic polarizing film sandwiched in between. So both can be damaged equally by the same laser.

[@MrAWESOMElol2]

The ND Filter method works up to 3-400 mw iam guessing. I tried it with a 100mw red and with a 1,6W blue. The focused down red obliterated the coating on it and blue with a regular beam focus did it after a few seconds. A full test would be nice since i dont wanna break mine even more :P

[@msclrhd]

It would be interesting to test which ingredients of Cola are affecting the laser beam.

[@SoulFoxie]

I'd love to see the Cola Filter tested on the Hercules in the future

[@Benoit-Pierre]

Engineering project : set your square box with 3 pumps, one sink, a coke source, a water source and an rPi. Ask the pi to always send a fixed total volume of liquid, with increasing proportion of coke. Once you have measured the absorption ratio for many dilutions, you can ask your pi a random absorption, reliably, repeatedly.

[@C4...]

Cool cool 😎

[@Shonade_Malik]

7:51 I think I know why there was still power, but even though you couldn't see the green light. Since they're like DPSS lasers, the coke is filtering out all the visible light, but ALMOST all of the infrared being emitted.

[@jek__]

Another thing thats convenient about liquid is that it has built-in water cooling and self repairing. Any holes burned through it will close up as soon as the laser is off. Thats something that even those fancy double polarizing lenses dont boast

[@hawkeyeentertainment494]

Yes pls stress test the filter

[@JofreRS]

The filter is going to break with strong lasers, but I wonder what the failure mode will be. The plastic filter seemed to melt, and I don't think this is going to happen on the glass filters. Maybe a crack from the heat differential?

[@halu7466]

use sugar 2:3 will do the same! thanks

[@brainiac75]

Interesting. I do plan to test sugar-free cola to see what difference it makes ;) Thanks for watching!

[@gremlin60]

can you show how to make a laser diode engraver have same focus point longer? for deeper cutting is there a lence i can use?

[@voca-chan7953]

Now we just need to make Cola glasses. You can eat it if you get thirsty.

[@AM-ty9lp]

Per Action Lab, doesn't the sugar in cola also act as a polarization filter?

[@lordsqueak]

A comparison of different beverages would be interesting. For example how does Tonic work as a filter. (because it's fluorescent.) And also... come to think of it. doesn't sugar act as a polarizing filter? (I think it was Steve Mould who explained that using pasta.)

[@Thaumazo]

And just like that, you've practically demonstrated how a spectrometer works lol

[@soyunpimpollo1622]

Friend, this effect is due to water. Water have a high absorbance. The visible spectrum is the only one that can penetrate some meters the water. For example, the red only penetrates a few milimeters and the blue or green some meters. The high absorbance of the cola is due to the water and the impurities and even the freen laser cannot penetrate.

[@JKKnudsen]

FYI often you can remove the back of mirrors with acetone, giving a front surface mirror.

[@brainiac75]

Interesting. But will the aluminium stay shiny/reflective? As I remember it, first surface mirrors also a protective coating on the metal.

[@JKKnudsen]

@@brainiac75 Its shiny for quite some time, the oxide layer perseveres the surface. It will get dull after a few months/year years(think telescope mirror)

[@iamdarkyoshi]

I seem to remember nighthawkinlight having a video covering this. However, as another commenter suggested, hard drive platters might be a good choice

[@JKKnudsen]

@@iamdarkyoshi That's a good suggestion, the nickel of the platter is less reflective, so a better suggestion for an attenuator.

[@EriksGarbage]

I'd like to see the ND filter tested

[@ThomasAndersonbsf]

one thing I should mention on the cola is that I have seen it sit on a balcony in the sun for quite a long time (long enough the label was all white as the red faded) and the cola liquid turned a sort of amber yellow so UV at the very least degrades what makes that brownish coffee color in the solution, I would like to see what say using salts in water would do (like copper sulfate dissolved or zinc sulfate ect,) as this seems like a good way to be able to make color specific filters due to the specific frequencies the different salts both when dissolved and when dehydrated into crystals, produce responses to their chemical makeup so it should not vary from location to location person to person, lab to lab. be it a high dollar funded university or a backyard shed of a private experimenter :)

[@kennyhagan5781]

❔ This answers other questions I had.....not even sure what to think.

[@elliotburing87]

Mmmmmm cola foam. The lens stress test sounds awesome btw… sorry for your budget.

[@CloudHater]

i wonder if a sufficiently powerful laser could break down the coloring in cola over time? considering a cola filter would have a pretty large volume of fluid in comparison to the area hit by the laser, and as a liquid could "mix out", it would probably take some time to happen

[@MrNemer-bn7rr]

Hi, do You have any lasers for sale? I also live in Denmark and I recently started to collect different types of lasers. Lasers have always been a fascinating thing to me

[@miragelee9754]

:o oh my… I didn’t know that our usual drink was for the beam too! What!

[@transkryption]

Cool

[@DougSalad]

Have you seen StyroPyro's "invisible IR death ray laser" video?" He starts the video showing off his IR camera, and he pours a glass of cola, which looks like carbonated water thru and IR camera. Totally transparent, super neat stuff!

[@brainiac75]

I haven't seen that video but a very strong IR laser will go through a lot of cola. I plan to test cola against my IR lasers in a future video (808 nm and 980 nm). Thanks for watching!

[@DougSalad]

@@brainiac75 of course! You're one of my favorites channels 😁

[@RodLucanor]

You have interesting ideas (AND equipment) Is posible to filter láser sight human spectre to spectre no human sight (like hunters or military use) ?

[@float32]

This is why IR lasers are so dangerous! You can’t see them at all.

[@Timestamp_Guy]

rather than changing size to affect filter density, try using a cube and just dilute with water, or strengthen with pure cola to dial up and down. So long as you can dial in and they leave it set, it should work fine, and you would be able to vary the power quite accurately

[@korishan]

Good thing about using the "cola" filter, is that it will auto-dissipate any heat it collects. The fluid will continue to swirl so no hot spot, or burn throughs will happen.

[@Pickelhaube808]

Depends on how powerful the laser is. I'd imagine a high power pulse laser could instantly boil a line cola through the glass... And probably break the glass too.

[@kreynolds1123]

Maybe you might want to see if you can rotate the polarity using an electromagnet coil.

[@mikegreiner5711]

do you think the glass will pop or just melt solid through?

[@dktr2]

I have noticed it once while playing with IP cameras with infrared illuminators, cola looks like water;)

[@ejonesss]

not only are the mirrors causing problems with the beam but it makes the beam more dangerous so more safety must be taken when dealing with glass and reflections because with a high enough power laser a stray reflection into your eyes can cause problems so laser goggles are a must.

[@Dr.K.Wette_BE]

Cola is good for so many things ! (except for drinking)

[@deaultusername]

1st surface mirrors can be found in scanners

[@fxDELTAx]

Now I have a valid reason to bring food into my lab.