Thorlabs is cool!

I bought some low power IR diodes from thorlabs.com.

I had a question about availability, so I called instead of ordering online.

Great people there!

I got my diodes, plus a bunch of freebies: shipping upgrade, two Lab-snack paks (boxes of various junk food) and a t-shirt!

;D I'll be buying from them again.

The diodes cost about $20 each. Same type of diode was $50 each from Frankfurt, Lasermate, Aixiz, etc.

Well that is only the diode... Aixis sells them with the lens and driver for about the same price. But free you got a T-shirt and snacks? good deal lol

Don't get me wrong - I love Aixiz. They are good people, and they will actually take an interest in your project if you talk with them about it. They have a good selection of modules, and you can buy a glass colimator in a threaded housing for a couple of bucks.

On the other hand, the best price they could get for this particular diode (905nm 10mw) from their China supplier was ~$50 each at small quantities.

Anyway, i posted this because the Thorlabs guy was funny. He said their snack packs are a big hit with the always-broke EE college student crowd who regularly forego food for 2 days to save up $20 for a diode. ;D ;D

I told him I've been out of school for 20 years; I'm a dumb newbie rather than a poor college student. He laughed and asked me size shirt I wear.

Anyway, they have lots of goodies in their online catalogue. And the snack pack had Power bars and granola bars enough to last almost two days. So if you've starved yourself for 2 days saving up for a diode, you should check 'em out! ;D

pwnstar said:

Well that is only the diode... Aixis sells them with the lens and driver for about the same price. But free you got a T-shirt and snacks? good deal lol

Click to expand...

Hey i was cruising the boards again tonite and i just realized you were giving me shit about the good deal thing.  Man, i must have been low on caffeine earlier...  

Let me try again...  

I shopped 904nm 10mw diodes at lasermate, frankfurt, aixiz, roithner and a few other manufacturers, plus digikey and few other distributors.  Why pay $50 for a $20 diode, right?    

I talked to both Xia and Chuck at Aixiz.  Chuck was pretty sure they could beat the Thorlabs price of $20 on those diodes.  Nope.  Come to find out, Xia said the best they could do was $60 each.  Yep, $60, I just checked my notes.  She asked how many i wanted, so i told her none, I'd be buying them at Thorlabs at $20 each.  She was very interested in that, called Thorlabs, bought some of their diodes, called me back within 15 minutes and offered to sell them to me at the same Thorlabs price (!!!), and thanked me for pointing her to that supplier, because since the dollar is so weak now, she can make money selling diodes back to China.  Yep.  Don't believe me?  Call her and ask her.  She's a smart gal, and seems very straightforward to me.  

So I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough ealier.  My intent was just to share an interesting experience I had with Thorlabs.  

I've checked my other threads here where I ask newbie questions and nobody answers them.  Still no answers.  

I just finished checking my list of reasons to continue posting here, and it's EMPTY!!  How about that!

I guess I'll convert my IR weapon sight on my own.  I just got my copy of Mims "Getting Started in Electronics" and a nice cold beer to go with it.  Hell, I'll be a junior circuit boy before you know it.  

Hmmm - I guess that adds another notch to the bat:  I've been a Big 8 auditor (when there was 8 big firms), built and operated golf driving ranges, operated pulse-telemetry downhole logging tools, got certified as a radiation supervisor for Halliburton so i could transport epithermal neutron and gamma sources to offshore drilling platforms, patented and marketed a medical instrument, built and raced a naturally-aspirated 182rwhp stock-wheelbase manually-shifted hayabusa to 9.8's at Douglas INTERNATIONAL Speedway (yep that's 4800' elevation), ran the same bike to 192.6 in the FL 9/10ths, managed a 50000 acre bison ranch and became its big-game outfitter in Elk Mountain Wyoming, got certified FF1 with NFPA and Oregon DPSST, been married to the same smokin hottie for 19 years, have three kids, a cat, and an Arabian gelding named Khan.  I'm 42.  When i don't understand something, i ask questions.  It's worked pretty good everywhere except here.  

The other day when Xia called me to quote me $60 per diode for N-type diodes, she asked:  (chinese girl accent you know what that mean, right?  I said yes, N-type means Pin 2 is the anode for the laser diode.  She never missed a beat.  What I should have said was something like:  don't ask that over at laserpointer's, you'll confuse the hell out of everyone.  

Now my beer's empty.  

pwnstar: f**k you, you twit.  

Bye.

DCS said:

[quote author=pwnstar link=1208235835/0#1 date=1208278772]Well that is only the diode... Aixis sells them with the lens and driver for about the same price. But free you got a T-shirt and snacks? good deal lol

Click to expand...

Hey i was cruising the boards again tonite and i just realized you were giving me shit about the good deal thing.  Man, i must have been low on caffeine earlier...  

Let me try again...  

I shopped 904nm 10mw diodes at lasermate, frankfurt, aixiz, roithner and a few other manufacturers, plus digikey and few other distributors.  Why pay $50 for a $20 diode, right?    

I talked to both Xia and Chuck at Aixiz.  Chuck was pretty sure they could beat the Thorlabs price of $20 on those diodes.  Nope.  Come to find out, Xia said the best they could do was $60 each.  Yep, $60, I just checked my notes.  She asked how many i wanted, so i told her none, I'd be buying them at Thorlabs at $20 each.  She was very interested in that, called Thorlabs, bought some of their diodes, called me back within 15 minutes and offered to sell them to me at the same Thorlabs price (!!!), and thanked me for pointing her to that supplier, because since the dollar is so weak now, she can make money selling diodes back to China.  Yep.  Don't believe me?  Call her and ask her.  She's a smart gal, and seems very straightforward to me.  

So I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough ealier.  My intent was just to share an interesting experience I had with Thorlabs.  

I've checked my other threads here where I ask newbie questions and nobody answers them.  Still no answers.  

I just finished checking my list of reasons to continue posting here, and it's EMPTY!!  How about that!

I guess I'll convert my IR weapon sight on my own.  I just got my copy of Mims "Getting Started in Electronics" and a nice cold beer to go with it.  Hell, I'll be a junior circuit boy before you know it.  

Hmmm - I guess that adds another notch to the bat:  I've been a Big 8 auditor (when there was 8 big firms), built and operated golf driving ranges, operated pulse-telemetry downhole logging tools, got certified as a radiation supervisor for Halliburton so i could transport epithermal neutron and gamma sources to offshore drilling platforms, patented and marketed a medical instrument, built and raced a naturally-aspirated 182rwhp stock-wheelbase manually-shifted hayabusa to 9.8's at Douglas INTERNATIONAL Speedway (yep that's 4800' elevation), ran the same bike to 192.6 in the FL 9/10ths, managed a 50000 acre bison ranch and became its big-game outfitter in Elk Mountain Wyoming, got certified FF1 with NFPA and Oregon DPSST, been married to the same smokin hottie for 19 years, have three kids, a cat, and an Arabian gelding named Khan.  I'm 42.  When i don't understand something, i ask questions.  It's worked pretty good everywhere except here.  

The other day when Xia called me to quote me $60 per diode for N-type diodes, she asked:  (chinese girl accent you know what that mean, right?  I said yes, N-type means Pin 2 is the anode for the laser diode.  She never missed a beat.  What I should have said was something like:  don't ask that over at laserpointer's, you'll confuse the hell out of everyone.  

Now my beer's empty.  

pwnstar: f**k you, you twit.  

Bye.[/quote]


hah no, im still a senior in highschool; and trust me, any snack is a good snack... =P I didnt mean anything by that. i also didnt realize you needed a specific waveleangth like 904nm. Nevertheless this was a really good story to tike up time in my cisco class. Its good to hear of a company that treats there customers like a friend.

pwnstar: f**k you, you twit.  

Click to expand...

lol...