WTB: ~12 Bluray Leadlights

I'm busy these days, so I figured I'd throw this out there and see if I can outsource some laser pointers.

I'm looking for 405nm leadlights/newwish/pointer pens of high quality and reliability, as good as if I was making them myself, or better. Leadlights are best, but I'll take any offers.

They must run on 2 AAA batteries, not 10440s, as they are likely to be work-related gifts to people who won't want to deal with the 10440s.

The builder must have a good, accurate power meter and the lasers must be within spec (since they are probably going to be official gifts, I will likely need them to be <5mW, and that will have to be documented, I want everything to be on the up-and-up for these things).

Focusable is fine, "hidden" focus like is common with newwish pointers is ok.

Shipped to California, if that matters in your quotes.

So, any takers? What would some of you high end builders (Dave? wannaburn? others I can't remember right now?) charge for a dozen pens? Gimme some quotes, here. I bought the last round of several that I needed from Dave, and those worked out well, but figured I'd branch out and see what other people can offer.

And those of you who don't want to illegally sell (jayrob comes to mind), keep in mind that I want <5mW, so these would be completely legal, and I even plan on doing the FDA paperwork for these if the plan comes together like I imagine it may.

what about the focal priced units they are pre focussed already and use 2 aaa batts they are about 40 each
Welcome to focalprice.com | The lowest Price for DS R4 lite,PSP Slim,Genuine Earphone,SONY EX71 EX082，PS2,Macbook Accessories etc.
or here even cheaper DealExtreme: $22.11 5mW 405nm Blue-Violet/Royal Purple Laser Pen (2*AAA)

john_lawson said:

what about the focal priced units they are pre focussed already and use 2 aaa batts they are about 40 each
Welcome to focalprice.com | The lowest Price for DS R4 lite,PSP Slim,Genuine Earphone,SONY EX71 EX082，PS2,Macbook Accessories etc.
or here even cheaper DealExtreme: $22.11 5mW 405nm Blue-Violet/Royal Purple Laser Pen (2*AAA)

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You can't really beat this. I bought a couple of them (from Focalprice) just to check them out. They arrived just today. They are good looking and solid feeling. One does 50mW. The other does 38mW. Both of those readings are "out of the box" with the supplied batteries. They are quite simply great little pointers (and great for fluorescence)

Peace,
dave

Are you sure you need them to be <5mW? It's not illegal to posess a >5mW that I know of, as long as you don't go shining it around in public.. You should be able to give them away as gifts as long as the people receiving them know the rules.

ElektroFreak said:

Are you sure you need them to be <5mW? It's not illegal to posess a >5mW that I know of, as long as you don't go shining it around in public.. You should be able to give them away as gifts as long as the people receiving them know the rules.

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This won't be ME giving them away, it will be our lab/group giving them away, so I'd much rather our lab not be giving powerful lasers out to people who might not know or care what a more powerful laser might be capable of.

Yeah, my friends all have 30mW lasers, that's no problem. But the research group giving lasers out as official gifts, like "good work this year, here's a token of appreciation"? Seems like a whole different story to me. I don't know of the legal stuff for giving away rather than selling it, but I'd rather be extra safe than sorry.

daguin said:

You can't really beat this. I bought a couple of them (from Focalprice) just to check them out. They arrived just today. They are good looking and solid feeling. One does 50mW. The other does 38mW. Both of those readings are "out of the box" with the supplied batteries. They are quite simply great little pointers (and great for fluorescence)

Peace,
dave

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And that's exactly why I don't want to go that route, because every "5mW" laser I've gotten from DX or similar has been ~30mW, or more. I don't want unsuspecting people to be getting lasers that they don't know how to handle. If it was just a gift from me to my friend, I can explain it to them and they'll know what they're getting. But there won't be anyone there to explain to recipients of these, they'll assume it's like every other regular pointer and perfectly safe, so I'd like to stay in that assumption as well.

If I could guarantee that "5mW" lasers would actually be 5mW, it'd be great. But since they come out over powered, I don't like the idea.

The last batch I got from you, everyone loved, but those were from me personally. These won't be from me, they'll be from the group, really an extension of the university.

--------------------------------------------

And really, not to sound flippant, but it's not my money here. An extra few bucks or whatever isn't a big deal for this, the group is buying them. Then again, I will speak to the powers that be about what is appropriate as far as power in this case. I believe 5mW would be the safe route, but maybe they won't mind. I know Shuji has a violet laser that is more than 5mW, it appears to be somewhere in the 20-30mW range. We'll see.

I could pull one of these apart to see if we could turn them down . . . . .

Otherwise:
diode $10
driver$23
module $4
Host ~$15 (IF we can get Leadlights)
Batteries $1

Total ~$53 each in parts alone (~$50 each if we use Newwish style hosts) Add some labor and shipping and you have just about doubled the price of the focal price ones and tripled the price of the DX units.

Once the Chinese and Koreans get involved with the manufacture of an item, we can no longer compete (even as hobbyists).

Peace,
dave

Do PHR's even lase at 5mW?
If you can get a PHR to lase that low isn't going to be nigh impossible to set the right current within a uA or so that it stays lasing yet outputs less than 5mW?

I dunno but it sounds like we need special diodes that aren't easy to find anymore since higher powered diodes have become so common.

daguin said:

I could pull one of these apart to see if we could turn them down . . . . .

Otherwise:
diode $10
driver$23
module $4
Host ~$15 (IF we can get Leadlights)
Batteries $1

Total ~$53 each in parts alone (~$50 each if we use Newwish style hosts) Add some labor and shipping and you have just about doubled the price of the focal price ones and tripled the price of the DX units.

Once the Chinese and Koreans get involved with the manufacture of an item, we can no longer compete (even as hobbyists).

Peace,
dave

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Yeah, the price difference does suck. But really, not my money. Maybe they would be ok with the higher power, I'll just have to see. If those could be turned down and reassembled easily, that would be great. You wouldn't mind risking your laser to check it out? Although the other problem with those is shipping time. A month would be ok, but 2 months would be too long, and DX hasn't proven to me that they can make that time frame reliably.

And as far as host, last I saw jayrob was still getting and selling empty, new leadlight pens for $11 each plus shipping, so I didn't think that was a problem.

pseudolobster said:

Do PHR's even lase at 5mW?
If you can get a PHR to lase that low isn't going to be nigh impossible to set the right current within a uA or so that it stays lasing yet outputs less than 5mW?

I dunno but it sounds like we need special diodes that aren't easy to find anymore since higher powered diodes have become so common.

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It absolutely works at 5mW. Ever turned current up 1mA at a time from zero, while using a power meter? For all intents and purposes, output is zero at threshold, and goes up linearly from there. It'll lase at 1mW, or less. You do have to get a small bit away from threshold to account for how threshold can change with temperature and such, but 5mW is plenty far enough away for that. It works great at 5mW.

They come apart very easily. I can show you, but you will have no problem figuring it out

You can turn them down to 1mW if you want to.

While I was playing I also turned it up. At 100mW it LED'd

I'll dismantle the diode/driver later to see if I can replace it.

Peace,
dave

**EDIT** The driver is the same driver as in the BobLaser I evaluated for DayofShadows. The module is slightly different, but the drivers are the same. I don't know if a PHR would make it or not. It looks like it needs some fairly long (read "stock") pins.

Peace,
dave

PM sent...

i could probably come up with 6x blu-ray leadlight pointers if you still needed them?

each with the correct foil warning label and foil blu-ray logo on them

daguin said:

They come apart very easily. I can show you, but you will have no problem figuring it out

You can turn them down to 1mW if you want to.

While I was playing I also turned it up. At 100mW it LED'd

I'll dismantle the diode/driver later to see if I can replace it.

Peace,
dave

**EDIT** The driver is the same driver as in the BobLaser I evaluated for DayofShadows. The module is slightly different, but the drivers are the same. I don't know if a PHR would make it or not. It looks like it needs some fairly long (read "stock") pins.

Peace,
dave

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Alright, that sounds pretty good. But now I have another problem: I absolutely have to have the lasers by the beginning of November. From my experience with DX, I think this would be a real problem. Are DX or Focalprice even possibilities with such a one month timeline? Thanks for your suggestions, all.

Even if PHR's can go that low in power, can a FlexDrive be turned down low enough to run one at that low of an output? It would probably have to be about 30mA's. And a FlexDrive can only go as low as about 65mA's. (which would be more like 40mW's)

... because you said you needed them to run off of 2 X normal AAA's correct?

Anyway, I have brand new pen hosts if anybody needs them!:
http://laserpointerforums.com/laser_pointer_forums_3/forum/showthread.php?t=22561

FocalPrice says that they are in stock ($35.67 each for >10 units)

Welcome to focalprice.com | The lowest Price for DS R4 lite,PSP Slim,Genuine Earphone,SONY EX71 EX082，PS2,Macbook Accessories etc.

DX says ETA 9/26 (~$21.50 each for >10)

DealExtreme: $22.11 5mW 405nm Blue-Violet/Royal Purple Laser Pen (2*AAA)

Lasers4U have them domestically for $49.99 each. Will (the owner) would probably give you a discount for more than 10 (Tell him I sent you )

405nm Violet Blue Laser Pointer 5mW NEW ships from USA - eBay (item 120463113931 end time Sep-25-09 10:55:16 PDT)

If I were in your shoes and needed them fast and $ was not my top concern, Will @ Lasers4U would be my choice. It appears that Will's lasers are the Boblasers style (like a CNI pen) rather than the Newwish style that FocalPrice and DX are.

In other news, I was able to repair my laser with a PHR diode. I had to "extend" the pins, but it is working at a fixed-focus 100mW now

Peace,
dave

Lasers4u sounds perfect, I'll drop Will a line. Do you happen to know a phone number, or is through ebay the best bet? A quick goggle didn't return anything that looked similar. Thanks again.

pullbangdead said:

Lasers4u sounds perfect, I'll drop Will a line. Do you happen to know a phone number, or is through ebay the best bet? A quick goggle didn't return anything that looked similar. Thanks again.

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PM'd

Peace,
dave