YouTuber inventor dude builds laser gun 50,000 times more powerful than highest danger rating

A scientist who runs a popular YouTube channel has created a laser gun that he says is “50,000 times stronger” than the U.S. legal limit for such an item.

The law-bending device was built by Drake ‘Styropyro’ Anthony, a content creator who describes himself as “a science maniac that loves building huge lasers and playing with electricity and chemicals”.

“An astonishing result to me”

In a video posted on his YouTube channel last week, Anthony shared the process of creating and testing his handheld laser gun, whose claimed output of 250 watts makes it so powerful that it caused a penny to go up in flames.

Currently, U.S. legislation limits a laser product’s output at five milliwatts.

“The fact that the laser literally lit a penny on fire is an astonishing result to me,” Anthony said in his viral video, which had accrued just over 3.2 million views at the time of writing.

“I’ve done all sorts of mad science experiments with pennies over the years. I’ve dissolved them in acid, treated them with cyanide, hit them with a thousand amps, blasted them with other lasers…

“But none of those methods ever managed to light a penny on fire. Even torching a penny doesn’t ignite it - it simply melts it.”

However, as he shows off a device he describes as the “world’s strongest handheld laser”, Anthony is also at pains to warn viewers of the potential for significant eye injury even when handling far weaker pointers.

“This warning may seem ironic coming from me...”

“This laser is so far off the laser danger rating that its eye hazards are incomprehensible […],” he says. “[But] a laser doesn’t have to be record-breaking to obliterate your retinas if misused.”

Anthony explains that even some of the laser pointers that you can buy online exceed the legal power limit and “can cause permanent eye damage from even an indirect reflection”.

“I realize this warning may seem ironic coming from me, but laser eye injuries are unfortunately very common today,” Anthony concludes.

Take a look at Styropyro’s viral video:

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