After stumbling upon an old Zapper light gun from a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) gaming console, the guys at North Street Labs had a sudden nostalgia attack. And we personally could not blame them for it, since it was a hell of a lot of fun back then — playing Nintendo, shooting up those nasty ducks with your light gun ;). Having dealt with their attack of nostalgia, the guys at North Street Labs got an excellent, even if a little crazy, idea for modding — to convert that gaming light gun into a real laser gun by installing a powerful laser inside it.

The original Zapper light gun from Nintendo

Needing a laser to install in the Zapper gun, the guys at North Street Labs choose a 2W laser diode module, which operates in the violet (445 nm) range of wavelength and is usually used in some projectors. If 2W of power do not sound powerful enough for you, than let us give some context — it’s four hundred times more powerful than a laser diode in a standard laser pointer and ten times more powerful than those laser diodes, which can cut through thin plastics and leave careless modding enthusiast without their sight ;). Aside from the laser diode module, the Zapper gun was also retrofitted with an appropriate driver, the necessary mounting hardware a lithium-polymer battery and a safety lock.

Using the new laser gun in cutting mode

Now you can literally zap something with laser from a Zapper

You can get more details on the completed laser gun and its operation in the embedded photos and video. If you do want to know how to build one for yourself and are really planing to do it, than you should remember to follow all the necessary safety rules, if you do not want to go blind. All of the additional details can be found in the corresponding post on North Street Labs’s website.

Source: Hack a Day