Testing dangerous DIY "medical" lasers from eBay

this video is sponsored by surfshark vpn.  hey everybody recently i was browsing around   on the weird side of ebay when i came across  some interesting laser gadgets in the health   and beauty section now you'd probably think this  stuff here would be pretty benign well at least   compared to what i'm used to buying on ebay but  i mean some of this stuff is really concerning i   mean these things are advertised to do procedures  that typically require huge lasers so that means   that either these things are fake or they're  extremely dangerous now naturally i had to find   out for myself what kind of lasers we're dealing  with here so i bought a few to test out for this   video oh yeah before i go on i should warn you  that all the crazy stuff you're about to see was   done completely for educational purposes i mean  if DIYing medical treatment wasn't sketchy enough   then doing it with some mystery device that was  made without any regards to safety regulations   is a big no-no so yeah please don't try this  at home all right let's start with this one   this is the neat cell spot removal laser which is  apparently an amazing all-in-one cosmetic device   this thing can apparently remove moles tattoos  freckles warts and pretty much any blemish you   can think of and all for only forty dollars wow  what a deal now is this thing actually legit or   is it just the led equivalent of essential oils?  well one way to find out. this is all what came   with the kit here you got the main device right  here a power supply these goggles and then uh   these instructions now as a general rule i don't  trust goggles that come with cheap kits like these   so i'll be using my own to test this thing  out now there really isn't any assembly here   i mean the thing just turns on when i plug  it in now i guess uh i guess this changes the   power here and then this changes uh i guess  the frequency well here goes nothing oh no   no okay this is one of the worst ideas i've ever  seen make into a commercial product like where   do i even start this thing is just a powerful  blue laser diode jammed in a pen style casing   which honestly isn't even that much different  than many of the lasers i've shown on this channel   but using this as a cosmetic device there are so  many issues with that let's start with a laser's   color blue light tends to be strongly absorbed  by skin which means you end up dumping most of   the laser's power into healthy skin tissue this is  a big problem as the whole idea is to not destroy   your skin as you target an unwanted blemish like a  tattoo it's not like this thing is weak either it   clearly packs a lot of power it can easily light  matches as well as burn a bunch of other materials   so what can this thing do to skin well can't  hurt to try right heck ow yeah that wasn't   pleasant at all i can't imagine how awful it  would feel trying to laser off an entire tattoo   with something like this best case scenario  you replace the tattoo with a horrific scar   worst case scenario well there's a lot of worst  case scenarios here believe it or not the burn   hazard is not the biggest risk here as usual with  powerful lasers the real risk is instant permanent   blindness in fact let's test the average output  power with my laser power meter by gentec eo okay so a little under a watt that puts in  the highest laser danger category there is   which means just looking at the spot on your skin  can burn your eyes out without goggles speaking of   goggles let's take a look at the goggles that came  with the laser huh look at that they're completely   opaque you can't see anything through them how are  you supposed to operate the laser if you can't see   anything well that's the thing these aren't  meant for you they're meant for your patience   this thing is advertised to treat basically  everything including common facial blemishes   like acne and freckles pointing this thing  at your face is just asking to go blind and   that's ignoring the fact that this thing would  likely give horrible scars on your face as well   oh yeah one more thing why is the laser flashing  like that well it turns out that pulse lasers are   preferred for a lot of dermatology treatments as  it allows a target to be destroyed faster than   the heat produced can diffuse out and damage other  tissues however there's one problem with that the   listing claims that the laser can do picosecond  pulses which would be an incredible feat for a   laser of this size it turns out though that the  pulses are a little over a tenth of a second   which is not only too slow to make much of an  effect here but it also means that the seller's   claim is off by a factor of over 100 billion i'm  legitimately impressed on how many bad ideas were   jammed into the single device i mean this thing's  a stain on our species but seriously though if you   know anybody with one of these or something  similar please tell them to get rid of it   immediately this product is alarmingly popular and  has serious potential to cause permanent injury   for the record there are similar products out  there with different names and some versions use   a near ir laser instead of a blue one these are  all likely to be just as awful as the one i tested   to make matters worse simply looking up info on  laser tattoo removal means you'll probably get ads   for this terrible device or maybe you'll just say  in a facebook message that you regret a tattoo and   next thing you know the entire internet is trying  to sell you one this is a dangerous side effect   of being cyber stalked by massive corporations  because they'd much rather sell you this trash   than refer you to a doctor now luckily there's an  easy way around this in fact i'd like to introduce   you to my sponsor surf shark surfshark's clean  web service is a great way to get rid of these   intrusive ads even if you aren't swayed by  dangerous medical ads simply blocking this   content can give faster browsing as well as save  on data of course this is just a small fraction   of what surfshark has to offer there are a lot of  reasons why somebody might find a vpn useful but   my main use is for bypassing throttling isps are  notorious for slowing your speeds when you visit   streaming sites like youtube ever have youtube  slow to a crawl when other sites work just fine   there are a lot of possible reasons why this  might happen but there's a good chance it's   from throttling surfshark is my best tool to  combat this geospoofing is another popular use   of surf shark because it's an easy way to bypass  censorship content not available in my country   no problem i'll just use surf shark to virtually  put my computer in a country where it is available   to top it off surf shark is the only vpn  to allow account use on unlimited devices   use my code styropyro to get 83 off in an extra  three months free the link's in the description   below and there's a 30 day money back guarantee  so you can try it out at no risk to yourself   so yeah i want to give a big thank you to  surf surfshark for sponsoring this video   alright on to the next one this system is  advertised to do pretty much the same thing   as the last laser except this one's 10 times more  expensive and obviously a lot bigger i've already   made an entire video on this ridiculous system  in the past but since this is a video on sketchy   diy medical lasers i'm obligated to break this  thing out again there's a lot more to this kit   than the last one for one the laser head here is  separate from the power supply then you have all   this other gear here i got a foot switch here  you got these tips here that change the lasers   output color i got some actual operator goggles as  well as the patient goggles i got this funnel for   adding cooling water and this treatment cream here  so what's so different about this one compared   to the pen laser if they're both supposed to  treat the same thing well pretty much everything unlike the last one which was a diode laser this  is an old-school flashlamp pumped laser that uses   Nd:YAG as the lasing medium in fact it's quite  similar to the first lasers ever built in that   regard don't let the old tech fool you though  this is an absolutely terrifying laser in fact   it's so powerful that it trashed the sensors on  the cameras i used to film it and that's without   even taking a direct hit the peak output power  here is millions of watts which is powerful enough   to ignite air at the focal point and blow craters  in a block of tungsten for those that watch the   original video of mine you might remember that  i blew up the flash lamp while trying to make   it stronger in my defense i bought the laser  used and the lamp was already near end of life   luckily it was easy to score a replacement  lamp and get the laser back to working order   of course it's hard to find words to describe  the eye hazard of a laser like this by far the   biggest flaw with this kit is that the goggles  sent with it are totally useless for the laser   the fact that you can still see green light coming  through them means there's no protection here   plus as my camera shows you don't need to point it  directly in your eye for it to cause irreparable   damage in fact a set of high od wraparound goggles  that actually protect you from the laser will cost   nearly as much as the laser itself on the flip  side the nerd in me is really impressed that a   q switch jag laser system with relatively high  pulse energy can be bought for dollars i mean   seriously you'd be hard-pressed to beat that  price if you build a similar system on your own   the laser is clearly good at blowing craters into  things but is it any good of the treatments it's   advertised for well it depends now i should be  careful how i say this but i do think a trained   operator could use this system to remove some  types of tattoos i mean the short pulses and   wavelength options are similar to what you'd find  in some professional systems unlike the last laser   this system produces extremely short pulses on  the order of 10 billionths of a second this allows   the laser to obliterate tattoo pigments while  leaving the surrounding skin relatively unharmed   that being said the reason it's so cheap is  because safety regulations were not taken   into account while designing this this thing is  nowhere near an ideal system i mean the controls   are very inaccurate and sometimes the laser just  shoots out random pulses for no reason at all   to top it off even a professional system in  the hands of an untrained operator is bound   to leave lots of scarring in whoever gets  used on this system isn't just advertised   to remove tattoos it also claims to be able to  remove eyebrows and skin blemishes now eyebrows   in case it isn't obvious pointing a million  white laser at your face isn't a great idea   but the thing is this isn't even a good system for  removing hair there are lasers that can do that   but they have much longer pulse lengths which  are more ideal for blowing up hair follicles   aside from the intended purposes for the  laser this thing can pull off some pretty   crazy experiments the power density at the focal  point is so high that it'll actually ignite air   plus with the frequency doubling tip the laser  is transformed into a scary powerful green laser   and then that can be used to excite organic dyes  to the point that they operate as a laser as well   compared to the last kit this one is certainly  more impressive i mean other than the astronomical   blinding hazard it could probably be used by a  trained operator to remove some types of tattoos   it would still be a terrible idea to use it on  yourself though alright what do we have next   oh yeah how about this laser plasma thing  this one is supposed to remove a lot of   the same blemishes as the other systems but  this one is by far the cheapest of the bunch   at a little over five dollars it's also the most  mysterious one no instructions came with the thing   just the device and some needle attachments  i have no clue how i'm supposed to use it   honestly this doesn't look like a laser at all  i mean if this is supposed to be the output   it certainly isn't visible light that it  produces well let's turn this thing on   um is it even oh okay yeah so okay that must  be activated and this has to be the output huh heck what is this thing i mean it's definitely  not a laser there's no visible output but it   definitely burns or shocks or something wow  yeah so it can definitely burn but the tip   itself isn't hot so it's got to be producing high  frequency electricity to burn like that okay check   this out since it can light up this neon bulb  this thing has got to be producing relatively   high voltage i mean these things don't light up  until you're close to 100 volts or so okay this   is really impressive so this is a nixie bulb here  and look at that it lights the whole thing up i   can even do it capacitively straight through  the glass wow yeah that is really really cool i've played with it a bit more now and i've  noticed that it seems to produce an arc to   objects that have a bit of capacitance to them  it's actually kind of fun engraving anodized   metals with it when the power's cranked up plus  i can use it to draw silly things on an apple alright so it's a lot of fun for screwing around  with but is it of any use for burning off skin   blemishes well the thing is high voltage high  frequency sources do get used in medicine to burn   off skin blemishes they don't exactly look like  this though the idea itself is pretty cool though   because at high enough frequencies the polarity  flips faster than nerve cells can be depolarized   this is why it can burn but not shock of course  that speaks nothing about the safety of this thing   now that being said i do want to try removing  a scar just to see how well it works this scar   right here seems to cause me a lot of problems in  my social life all right here goes nothing oh heck   why do i do this stuff oh oh this  sucks oh my gosh oh it smells so bad   oh that was extremely unpleasant now i'm too  impatient to wait and see what this thing turns   into but judging by how that felt it's got  to make whatever blemish you have much worse   now there could also be a risk of deep tissue  burns here i'm curious what's actually inside   this thing so i'm going to tear it apart wow  the fda and fcc would have a stroke over this what is this a slayer exciter circuit  i mean the burns from this thing feel   a lot like the burns my slayer  cider gives me ow hmm i wonder i'm kidding well i certainly don't recommend this  for any sort of medical or cosmetic use   and this thing definitely isn't  a laser like the listing said   however it still may be useful as a portable  high frequency source for lining up gas tubes all right what do we have left well  a lot of things but i'm just going   to skip to this monstrosity this is a huge  surgical laser that came out of a hospital   now i'll be honest it's not totally fair to  include this one in the video because it was   never marketed for diy use now that being said  it is still a medical laser i did buy on ebay   and i like a lot of medical goodies this one  ended up on the surplus market when its licensing   expired and a newer laser tech became available  now i knew this thing was 150 grand but thanks   to ebay i bought this one for 500 bucks this thing  can do over 100 watts average of green light which   makes it by far the brightest laser that i own  the peak output power is many thousands of watts pump and dump baby 100 watts of green light is so bright  that it's hard to capture on camera   so as a comparison here i have a 1.6 watt  green laser that i threw together recently   now obviously this thing is extremely  bright i mean it lights up my entire shop   now let's take a look at what this looks  like compared to the surgical laser   pretty crazy right that makes this thing look  like nothing as expected this thing can tear   through a lot of materials as it was designed  for blowing up flesh in a surgical setting   this laser actually has a lot in common with  the big tattoo laser they're both lamp pumped   frequency doubled Nd:YAG lasers but this one  uses an arc lamp instead of a flash lamp this   means the output is more or less continuous i see  more or less because this laser is actually pulsed   it just looks continuous because the rep rate  is so high believe it or not that thing is only   outputting light about one percent of the time but  it's doing so in pulses that exceed 10 000 watts   the lamp actually stays on the entire time here  but these pulses are generated via q switching by   an acousto optic modulator this kills the gain  of the cavity for a brief period to allow the   YAG crystal to build up energy then it restores  the gain for a moment to allow the energy to be   released all at once in a powerful pulse of light  these pulses have two functions for one they're   preferred over cw and many surgical applications  involving ablating tissues but it also makes   the conversion step from ir to green much more  efficient and this is due to the gigantic power   density contained in the frequency doubling  crystal the pulses are being generated many   thousands of times per second and in fact you can  hear the pulses when i stick something in the beam   that hum is actually due to the laser  pulses inducing vibrations in the material this laser was not plug and play like the  other ones in fact the manufacturer put   considerable effort to prevent people  like me from being able to use it   obviously that wasn't able to stop me but it  wasn't exactly due to genius on my part the first   issues i encountered were probably due to the fact  that this thing sat in storage for several years   a water cooling line exploded and soaked the  electronics inside the first time i powered it up   i replaced some bad fittings and then let  it dry for a while before firing it up again   surprisingly it still started up just fine after  this but even so the onboard computer prevented   the system from making any output without being  fed service cards this meant that i needed to   either build my own crude lamp supply for the  laser or just find a way to hack the onboard   computer the first option would be painstaking  and sub-optimal so the second option was by far   preferred i don't exactly get along with digital  electronics but thankfully i knew just who to ask   for help with this my friend kevin who's the owner  of starlight photonics has spent considerable time   reverse engineering the surgical laser and has  even developed a board that overrides the original   controls i bought one of these boards from him  and sure enough it worked super well i just had to   solder a few connections and after that i had full  control over the system i can adjust a bunch of   parameters like lamp current and q switch rate as  well as monitor the water temperature and pressure   his board plus this surgical laser gives an  unbelievably low cost way of attaining a 100 watt   green laser system i don't usually recommend ebay  sellers but this is an exception i've bought from   starlight photonics for many years and i've gotten  a lot of cool parts for my projects from them   now obviously attaining a 100 watt laser system  as new experimenter is a terrible idea but for   research projects on a budget it's a pretty hard  deal to beat now i could go on for hours and all   the weird stuff i've bought on ebay but at that  point it really isn't in line with the original   topic here the main takeaway is that none of these  gadgets are safe to use on yourself honestly it's   really disturbing on how many of these gadgets get  sold in such high volumes to clueless customers   that's not to say i don't see the appeal here  though i mean for somebody who's looking to get   rid of a blemish but they're embarrassed or can't  afford treatment they might look into getting one   of these products and to be fair there's not  much info out there if you're trying to find   safety concerns and to make matters worse there's  probably a lot of fake reviews out there as well   none of these gadgets are safe but the  real loser in this bunch is the neatcell.   this thing is an absolute disgrace if there's  any gadget that should be wiped from sites like   amazon or ebay it's this one shame on whoever put  this thing on the market well i guess that's about   all i have for you today i do want to thank surf  shark again for sponsoring this video so be sure   to check out the link in the description so yeah  until the next time stay safe and happy lasing

Channel: styropyro

Views: 1,312,918

Rating: 4.9490423 out of 5

Keywords: laser, neatcell, plasma pen

Id: DbzbIGkPW-o

Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ew_modemac]

This kid's personality and his sarcastic tone of voice are both hilarious and frightening at the same time. Frankly, I'm glad I don't live in the same city as him. At least, I think I don't. However, he does a great job exposing dangerous quackery in the form of "medical" lasers sold for do-it-yourself treatments. If the video is accurate, you're practically guaranteed to injure yourself or permanently damage your eyes with these things, or both.