There are many stores who sell lasers but fail to know the accurate output of their products. To tell you the truth, priceagels is one of these stores. These days, I receive some suggestions that we should get LPM to test all of my lasers.

Do you think it is important for a company (shopping center) to get a LPM? As far as I know, focalprice, DX, wholesale and many other stores don't have their own LPM. As far as I know they are all doing well in lasers' selling.

Now, I'd like to give some change to my company, but I need your help and your advices firstly


Some suggestions of quality reliable (as reliable as John) LPM suppliers will be thanked.

thanks all

reliable john

John,

To sell to an audience like this, yes, I think it'd be rather important.
It would certainly set your shop apart from the others.

Additionally, if you could guarantee tested outputs, you could probably bin them at different price levels.

I know that'd involve some labor though, so I'm not sure how feasible it is for you.
But, around here, it'd go a very long way as far as reputation goes.

Focalprice and DX are known for inflated power output claims, so we take all of their ratings with a grain of salt...

Consider this: Priceangels could test a small quantity, separate out those that test well, and sell those as guaranteed output.
The only catch is, since most of those lasers are not IR filtered, we don't know how much of that power is IR and how much is 532/green.

But, nonetheless: some measurement is most certainly better than none at all. You could even have a section on your store, "Tested Output Lasers".
I would say, don't be afraid of your stock testing below "supplier claims", most of us know that a $40 "200mW" green laser is not really going to do 200mW.
I can't speak for everyone else, but I know I'd rather know what I was getting for $40, since we KNOW that it won't be 200mW anyways. That doesn't reflect poorly on your shop; resellers of inexpensive lasers usually simply post their suppliers claims.


Just something to consider.

Pretty sincere and helpful. Labor is a problem for me now. We have nearly 100 workers, but still not enough. Lacking of human resources is a problem for all factories and companies in china since last year. But we are trying our best to attract more labors.

Another question, Will output with IR and without IR differ much? I just read a thread, it says an laser with the output of 421mw will performance only 129mw after IR. If so, I am worried about my lasers' output with IR. There are some lasers claim 50mw, will it be nearly 5 mw with IR? If so It will be impossible for me to sell them.

If they expect to stay in business they better have a good one

yes this is important.
you can only check laser for people who demand it (like LPF members )

Hey John I really think this would set price angles above a lot of other similar sites. I think it would really get you more sales from laser enthusiast that want to know what power laser they will be getting.

The amount of ir/532 usually varies between laser. Some lasers will have a lot greater percentage of green than other will, but that varies based on the diode (ir), the crystals used, and any additional lenses.

-udanis

When a company owns a LPM it ensures the community that the company knows what they're doing and that their lasers will be at or near spec. By adding IR filters it lets the buyers know they're getting 150mW of green when they buy a 150mW laser.

200th post

In my book absolutely. An IR filter would solve the "how much IR" on 532nm. Even if you held it by hand on the lasers output.

Here's an email i got from rayfoss when i asked if they would add an IR filter for free

I think the laser you read about in that thread was just a defective model as it suffered about a 70% power loss when it had the IR filter added. On the other hand Rayfoss might be ripping people off or just having a rough patch lately.

It would help with your companies reputation if you got a LPM to guarantee the outputs. If your lasers are good quality they wont suffer huge power losses (they may even be more powerful than the claimed mW in which case brilliant!). Good luck

I have just received a 50mW green laser from Rayfoss.

It cost me $40, I paid that much because of the nice waterproof host and for the assurance that I got the power output stated.

Testing a laser will enable you to get a significant higher price for the same stated power.
The problem is that the same laser will likely have a significant lower stated output in the tested section than in the regular shop.

Say you have a laser.
XX-850 200mW 532nm Green Laser Pointer (1*CR123A Battery Included) $39.50 Free Shipping
In you regular shop it is $40 for "200mW" in a nice host.
If you put it in your "power tested lasers" subsection it might be described as e.g. 121mW total output, 103mW 532nm.
You could likely sell it fast for $60-75.

Jhon you can test how much green your lasers are outputting just by adding an ir filter in from of the beam. you can then proceed to test it on a lpm. Then you can test it without the ir filter to see the difference. The increase in power should be ir.

In my opinion it's great if a shop provides actual stats about power, using a LPM.

However, I can also imagine it will take a lot of work to meter all the units you're shipping.
You could, for example, add the LPM graphs for an additional cost. (for example, 2$).

Just a suggestion for you ..... if you decide to buy an LPM, and sell certified output lasers, please do the measures in the right way .....

I'm NOT try to bash you, but, i have seen on the internet some companies that sell lasers, and post pictures with a LPM, for show that their lasers are the power that they say, and some (luckily not all) of them, do this in the worse way ..... where, as example, you can see that a measure is taken with the laser in contact with the thermopile head, when almost all knows that a thermopile is so sensitive that, in this way, you measure also the heat of the laser module as output power .....

A good way for measure the effective power of a laser, is to check the zero set of the LPM just before each reading, to keep the laser at least at 20cm away from the reading head (40cm is usually a good distance), and, in case of a focusable laser, to slightly de-focus the beam, so it cover approximatively half of the reading surface, and always keeping it centered (cause, for their nature, the thermopiles reads always more of the real value, if the beam is pointed focused near the border of the reading disk)

Doing the measure in this way, you know the real output power of your lasers ..... and about IR filtering, only the worse DPSS modules have more IR than green, usually a decent module have around 15 to 20% of the output power as IR (if unfiltered), and some good ones can have less than 10% of IR in the green ..... this can help you also in discarding very low quality manufacturers, by the way .....

Anyway, for have a good "tools set", just get an anti-IR filter, with the LPM, so you can read the laser directly, and then place the filter in front of it, and see how much it decrease ..... an advice, also the green light is a little bit attenuated, from the IR filter (there is always a loss of power, when a laser beam pass through an object, also if it was pure transparent glass, cause there are always some reflections and refractions) ..... If you decide to buy a professional IR filter, they are available with AR coating, and usually the seller gives also attenuation graphics, so one can directly know the loss of the green component of the beam ..... but they are, usually, not cheap .....

If instead you decide to use a normal, uncoated IR filter, you need to do a simple test, for know how much, in percentage, it take away from your green light ..... the easiest system is to get two filters, stick one on a green laser, and take the power measure with it (so the measured light is practically almost all green, with no IR) ..... then, mounting the second on a stand (preferably a slightly angled, respect the perpendicular), and place it in the beam, reading the new value ..... the difference between the 2 values is the percentage of green that the filter take away, at that angle, so when you place it in the path of an unfiltered laser, you know how much percent of green it read less than the real, after having filtered out the IR .....

Let me give an example with numbers, cause my English is not the best ..... suppose that you read the IR filtered laser at 100mW ..... and placing the second filter in the beam path, your reading becomes 95mW ..... then you know that your filter, other than the IR, take away also 5% of the green part ..... so, when you read an unfiltered laser, and read, say, 200mW, then place this filter in the beam path and read, say, 140mW, the real power of the green light is 140, plus the 5% took out from the filter (7mW), that make 147mW .....

^^^^ Correct as usual and I agree^^^^

Jerry

Even if you did not want to go through the hassle of testing every laser you could grab 3-5 of each laser you sell and list the outputs in the details of the item that would put you light years ahead of other similar sites. This way a buyer could get an idea of the average power. As we know most lasers have variations in power from unit to unit. And an IR filter for the greens would be great as well.

As i've posted before...
I know for a fact that O-like has a Deluxe LaserBee I that they
purchased from us last year... and O-like's Laser are up to spec
the last time I checked...

Buyers will be happier knowing that the Seller has the tools to test the
output of his Lasers that he advertises...
If you sell a Laser at 100mW then there will be no reason that the Laser
should be outputting less...

Jerry

I would imagine the administrative problems would be bigger than the purely practical ones.

The metering would require a LPM, goggles, an stack of batteries, and an IR filter. (right?)

Having the tester put a sticker* on the box of each laser is just the first step, getting from there to having the tested lasers appearing on the website require a decision of whether they need a article number (SKU) each or can be grouped into ranges.

*the sticker should read "total output" and "IR filtered output"

Yeah... your right... it is just too much trouble...

Lets just believe what most of the sellers are telling us so we can
complain about the lousy underspec Lasers we receive on the Forum...

Yeah.... that makes more sense....

Jerry

(There seems to be something wrong with the reply system, I just replied, but now my words have disappeared. )

Thanks for all you suggestions and explanation, which are essential to me. After reading all your replys carefully again and again, I have known much more about IR and LPM.
Just receive a helpful PM from jerry, I will consider your idea. Jerry, We have been friends for long, so forget my joke in my PM!
But now still wondering what makes a good LPM? Some more knowledge about LPM will be appreciated. Will different lasers need different IR? For example, will a IR for 532nm do well in a 650nm laser's test ? And it will be perfect, if some information about the price is given

I am trying to point out that the metering is the easy part.

To me getting the lasers categorised, numbered and added to the webpage with correct inventory tracking would be a bigger headache.

Of course it could be done by simply binning them in 50mW+ 100mW+ and 150mW+ categories. The buyer would pay for and get one from the e. g. 50mW+ bin with a sticker on the box saying e.g. "111mW total" "76 mW 532".

I am not sure if the level of overspec from such simple categorising is a good deal for the seller.

Yes, you are right, there will be all kinds of problems. But in my view, there is a solution for each problem. I'm going to find the best solutions

Thank you,
I find that considering the problems in advance is a great help to avoid/solving them in advance.

Here is why we always recommend O-Like when people ask where to buy a good laser.

O-Like Red/IR test results

Susie tests all their lasers, and sends the underspec units back to the manufacturer.

I'd like to check their website, they seem to be really honest company.

By the way, I remember I started a poll to find out what is the most important factor for a laser. According to the results, ( What do you concerned most about lasers?) the output is not the factor which customers care most. The price and quality seem to gain the most votes



But after reading hundreds of threads, I find the most important thing seems to be output. There seems to be some conflict

I have spend much time on consumer psychology to know more about customers' needs and idea, but still have some problems sometime.

Basically, the sensitivity, the repetitivity, and the precision and calibration, are the better things to look in any LPM, also with insensitivity in differences of measured wavelenght .....

I mean, if you need to test low-powered lasers, you need a LPM that is sensitive enough to measure also them with a decent accuracy ..... repetitivity, i mean it as "if you take 10 measures of the same laser in the same conditions, they must be identicals" (or, at least, reasonably identicals) ..... precision and calibration are obvious things, as for any measure instruments, you need an LPM that measure the correct amount of power from the beam (no need to get a 0,01% accuracy lab unit, for take on-the-fly measures in a shop, but if you want a decently accurate measure, you need at least a 5% or more precise unit) .....

About the insensitivity to different wavelenghts, this is a separate argument ..... there are basically 2 different types of LPMs (well, there are 5, in fact, but you don't need them, so basically the classes of LPMs that can be used in a shop are 2) ..... photodetectors and thermal detectors ..... photodetectors are the more sensitive type of measuring heads, for laser powers (they can measure microwatts), but they have also the inconvenient that they are extremely sensitive to differences in wavelenghts ..... the photodiodes used for them, none of them have a "flat response curve" to different wavelenghts, so, for use one of them, you need to know both the different wavelenghts of the laser that you are measuring, and the correction chart for the different wavelenghts, and after, you need to multiply the reading for the correction factor for that specific wavelenght, for get the real value ..... can not give too much problem, for a private, but in a shop, i guess it can be a real pain you-know-where .....

The second class of LPMs is the one that uses thermal sensors, or "thermopiles" ..... there are two different types, of sensors called thermopiles, one is made using Peltiers sensors in reverse use, and one is made using a lot of bimetallic junctions "printed" on the back of a very thin disk, painted on the reading side with substances that ensure the maximum possible light absorption ..... the first type (peltier cells) are a slightly less sensitive to very low powers (but there are some good ones, like as example the ones that Jerry sell), and can have a slight thermal derive for prolonged reading cycles, but are almost ininfluent to the point where you hit the sensor with the beam (i mean, the reading don't change too much if you point the beam on the center or on the borders), and are less delicate and cheaper than thermopiles ..... bimetal thermopiles are more sensitive to low powers, and intrinsecally less sensitive to thermal derive from prolonged reading cycles, but must be used pointing the beam the more centrally possible, for have a correc reading, cause are more sensitive also to the point where you point the beam (mean, pointing at the center, you have the correct reading, where pointing at the borders, you read more power than the real one), and are more delicate and have higher costs .....


Well, no, only green DPSS (or, more precisely, all the DPSS types of lasers, but mainly we speak about green, speaking about IR leaking), have IR leaking ..... this cause the green light is obtained "pumping" infrared light in the crystal that double the frequency, so part of the IR light (both 808nm and 1064nm) can leak out with the green ..... if the module is well built, with crystal sealed in the heatsink and AR / HR layers well done, the IR leaking is minimal, but usually "commercial" (read "cheap" ) pointers uses simply a glued crystal set, glued in a corner of the heatsink holder, without any seal, and with only an AR coating, so the IR leakage is higher (and, ofcourse, worse is the building, more is the IR leakage) .....

Laser diodes does not have IR leakage at all, they lase directly in the declared wavelenght, so there's no need at all to filter out IR from them, they just don't produce it.

Hope this was that what you want to know, if you need any other informations, just ask