473nm Blue Pointer in Pen Style Case!

My new blue pointer has arrived, bought from a Laser importer in Italy and sent to me in UK. It's 50mW, although I've not been able to confirm as I don't have a power meter - yet! I'm told it's a CNI - which by checking on the CNI site I assume is a GLP-473. Also looks exactly the same as the Laserglow Aquarius, although they package it in a nice metal case, where CNI use a good old no-frills cardboard box! I think possibly CNI might supply Laserglow, don't know??
  Anyway, its a nice slim size - for a blue! 16.5mm dia., 149mm long and takes a single 3v CR2 battery. Powering it up, it produced a nice tight beam, about 1mm dia I'd say. It's Q-Switched @ 700Hz, I know that means pulsed but don't fully understand the ins and outs of it. It does give a nice dotted line when moved fast across a wall!

One thing that shocked me, I measured current draw - it takes a whopping 1.2A !!!! Can't be right, can it? My 300mW green pen has a 1.5W diode which takes 420mA, and I always thought 473nm DPSS were around 3% efficient, which would mean 50mW @ 473nm would be produced from the same 1.5W IR diode?

Pics of unit: (will get a decent beam shot when dark)


Boxed:





In hand:





Beam - indoors, subdued daylight:

spark001uk said:

My new blue pointer has arrived, bought from a Laser importer in Italy and sent to me in UK. It's 50mW,

Click to expand...

That sound you heard was me falling out of my chair laughing. I'm hoping that that is a typo. They're cool lasers. I've got one, they didn't really tell you it was 50mW did they?

Or has the world come to an end?

Peace,
dave

daguin said:

[quote author=spark001uk link=1214255224/0#0 date=1214255224]My new blue pointer has arrived, bought from a Laser importer in Italy and sent to me in UK. It's 50mW,

Click to expand...

That sound you heard was me falling out of my chair laughing. I'm hoping that that is a typo. They're cool lasers. I've got one, they didn't really tell you it was 50mW did they?

Or has the world come to an end?

Peace,
dave
[/quote]
Actually it might peak at around 50mw and they rated it by the peak. The CNI blue pointers are pulsed and the peak can be surprisingly high.

How much did you pay for the unit? CNI seem to make a 50mW version, but I highly doubt it will be stable at that power. Dragon Lasers stopped selling the 20mW version for those exact reasons. You'll be lucky if it pushes that power, if it does it will most likely be wildly unstable...

Razako said:

[quote author=daguin link=1214255224/0#1 date=1214255638][quote author=spark001uk link=1214255224/0#0 date=1214255224]My new blue pointer has arrived, bought from a Laser importer in Italy and sent to me in UK. It's 50mW,

Click to expand...

That sound you heard was me falling out of my chair laughing. I'm hoping that that is a typo. They're cool lasers. I've got one, they didn't really tell you it was 50mW did they?

Or has the world come to an end?

Peace,
dave
[/quote]
Actually it might peak at around 50mw and they rated it by the peak. The CNI blue pointers are pulsed and the peak can be surprisingly high.[/quote]

I don't think they peak THAT high ! I would love to measure one of those freaky-deaky lasers !

Well, I'm not sure either, but here's one of the seller's pics -
Like you say, it could peak quite high, and the photo only shows a split second of its output of course!

Paid £228 inc secure delivery by the way.

spark001uk said:

Paid £228 inc secure delivery by the way.

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If you're getting 50mW of 473nm for $450 (including delivery) I'm getting in line. I wish you all the best, but I don't see this out there anywhere. Get it to someone with a quality meter. I'm not saying you got ripped off or that it wasn't worth the price you paid. Blue hand held lasers are expensive. It's just that 50mW of blue is pretty hard to do with a hand held, powered by one 3V battery.

Peace,
dave

True. Any ideas why its drawing 1.2A? At 3% efficiency, even 30mW would only need a 1W IR diode @ 3v (drawing about 350mA i believe) ? Or is it the fact it's Qswitching that's fooling my dvm perhaps?

Im not seeing 50mw of blue for $450 possible right now unless the seller is loosing a lot or scamming you.

If you're thinking of the same italy ebay seller I'm thinking of - watch out. They started off selling reasonable 100mW greens at okay prices - seemed decent enough. Then they started taking the same 80mW CNIs and calling them 200mW+ IIRC. Its very easy for unfiltered IR to mess with a lasercheck reading with blue lasers - My RPL 17mW reads in at >85mW on a lasercheck, but measurements with an extra IR filter bring it back down to reasonable numbers. Its possible I guess, but I highly doubt anyone would let 50mW get away for $450 - if they did, they'd be taking a DEFINITE loss so either you got very lucky... or... not

pseudonomen137 said:

If you're thinking of the same italy ebay seller I'm thinking of - watch out. They started off selling reasonable 100mW greens at okay prices - seemed decent enough. Then they started taking the same 80mW CNIs and calling them 200mW+ IIRC. Its very easy for unfiltered IR to mess with a lasercheck reading with blue lasers - My RPL 17mW reads in at >85mW on a lasercheck, but measurements with an extra IR filter bring it back down to reasonable numbers. Its possible I guess, but I highly doubt anyone would let 50mW get away for $450 - if they did, they'd be taking a DEFINITE loss so either you got very lucky... or... not  

Click to expand...

To be honest i did doubt 50mW, but I'd say for what i paid i did reasonably ok to get a blue pointer at all?!

I live in the UK and have a pretty decent set up (Scientech 362/360001), I would be more than willing to test it for you should you ever wish it...

If it was only $450 you got scammed for sure. There is simply no way you are going to get 50mw of blue for $450.
Look at the price of the 25mw unit here
http://laserglow.com/index.php?aquarius

spark001uk said:

[quote author=pseudonomen137 link=1214255224/0#10 date=1214260776]If you're thinking of the same italy ebay seller I'm thinking of - watch out. They started off selling reasonable 100mW greens at okay prices - seemed decent enough. Then they started taking the same 80mW CNIs and calling them 200mW+ IIRC. Its very easy for unfiltered IR to mess with a lasercheck reading with blue lasers - My RPL 17mW reads in at >85mW on a lasercheck, but measurements with an extra IR filter bring it back down to reasonable numbers. Its possible I guess, but I highly doubt anyone would let 50mW get away for $450 - if they did, they'd be taking a DEFINITE loss so either you got very lucky... or... not

Click to expand...

To be honest i did doubt 50mW, but I'd say for what i paid i did reasonably ok to get a blue pointer at all?![/quote]


It's actually a pretty fair price for a 5mW blue from a reputable dealer. Look around at the prices. I wonder if the Lasercheck can be set to different "ranges" so that the decimal point is simply in the wrong place. As I said, still a fair price for the unit, just probably NOT 50mW.

Peace,
dave

as senkat was saying the laser may be unfiltered and the IR output affecting the lasercheck reading - i think for those lasers the IR filter is glued right to the cap so if you unscrew the top cap you should see a green/blue colored piece of glass glued to the cap, if not - you'll know the 50mW is really BS