DIY Super-Powered Flashlight Beam

While we provide you with plenty of incredible laser projects, perhaps you’re like Ralf Ottow and still long for something more. He’s a Dutch optics engineer has built an incredibly powerful flashlight that projects a beam of light four miles long. The “Maxablaster” as it is dubbed lives up to its name as it gives out a beam with the intensity of 38-million-candle. He gutted a standard flashlight and added his own custom hardware.

To understand its illuminating power, let’s say that the Maxablaster can focus a bright spot of light on a cloud four miles high or a house the same distance. That’s also 5,000 times greater than the reach of a household flashlight.

Stripped to its innards, the Maxablaster is powerful commercial flashlight hacked to the core. The normal bulb swapped in with a mercury arc bulb generates the bright beam. To manage the fall-out of excess heat and UV rays, the Dutch engineer contained it with a specially coated reflector and devised a new glass window that would trap the skin scorching UV rays while still pumping out light.

All that power is pumped out by 54 off-the-shelf nickel-metal-hydride batteries regulated by ballast. Built in six months at a cost of $1800, there are very few flashlights which come close to the power of the Maxablaster. Don’t miss our plenty of light and laser projects to brighten your day.

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