DX 532nm 200mw superstar dead

I’m really sad [ch61516] She really was my superstar. Consistent 180mw of 532nm, with great visual stability, and consistently over 165mw (even at 5 min). Then last night she seems dimmer. I change batteries, and this doesn’t help. Then this AM, even dimmer, and now, completely dead. Now, I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of “I told you DX is cheap, if you want something which works, get something real” type comments, but that’s not what I really am after. I thought I got a good DX greenie (by the luck of the draw) here, with good xtals, etc. It very consistently output the high 160-180 range (in green alone). Are the DX 200’s over driven? I know a bigger (less driven) diode and bigger body (heat sink) would help, but I actually LIKED the fact that I held such power in such a small pen. And to boot, the batteries really lasted quite a while! That really added to its appeal for me! Is it too much to ask, to have a ~200mW 532nm pen pointer which will last the ~5000 hours? Mine worked fine for maybe 100 hours (I’m taking a rough stab). Does it sound like (based on the very limited info I have provided), that this was something I did, or just the components wearing out (diode, etc). I did have one problem where I got a bit of a short with the spring touching the walls, but corrected that quickly, and it seemed to short the batteries (so they heated up a bit). I wouldn’t expect that to cause a voltage spike to the diode, but rather, to only deny current to the diode, while making the batteries short (heat up).

Is it too much to ask to get a reasonably priced pen which will output 200-300mw of 532 consistently, with an ~ 5000 hour life, and not spend thousands? Sad day for me [ch61516] Based on the performance, I felt I had a quality 532nm pen. Perhaps I was wrong? Perhaps this diode was being WAY over driven? If not, perhaps it is somethhing I did? Or perhaps the diodes are very sensitive to even modest heat build up (and this warmth I felt in the head after extended usage, actually eroded the life consideribaly (doubt that))? Who kows?

Well, a pen outputting 300mw is nearly inpossible, but you could try dragonlasers aurora GW-200. it says average output 200-250mw, so it is very powerful for a pen. But it WON'T make 200mw consistently, as it is pulsed. ;D It also is pretty costly.

Your DX 200 may not be dead, it could be the electrical contact between the batteries and the driver board. I thought that my DX 5mw was dead, but i disassembled the entire pen, and put a wire between two AAA batts and the driver board. And it worked again! I also adjusted the pot to make it more powerful, and I almost made it look as bright as my X-85. But then of course it died, since I was seriously overdriving it. But if all hope for you DX 200 seems to be away, try to disassemble it, and make a better contact between the batts and the driver board. If you are lucky, you COULD make it to work again. But if you are unlucky, it really is dead due to a voltage spike or something like that.

sarbanes said:

and consistently over 165mw (even at 5 min).

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You what, left a 200mW pen style greenie on for 5 minutes?

That is WAY over the duty cycle. Those little pens don't have the heatsinking to cope with that much heat for long. 1 minute on 30 seconds off is probably safe.

So if you did leave it on for 5 minutes, and do that a lot, then I think you just fried and and that's why it failed.

If you left it on for 5 minutes at a time it is more than likely that you fried it. You should leave a DX 200 for for 1 minute max. Those things have NO heatsinking whatsoever.

Yeah, DX lasers have enough heatsinking for a duty cycle of about half a second on. I've dismantled several newwish 100mWs for review, and it amazed me how damn hot they were running after so little time. That every single one didn't fail after a few hours of use was a miracle to me.

"Is it too much to ask to get a reasonably priced pen which will output 200-300mw of 532 consistently, with an ~ 5000 hour life, and not spend thousands? "
Yes, it is.
To get ~5000 hour life of a regular 808nm diode, you need to keep it relatively cool. 200-300mW green output. I've yet to see a single green pen that averages in that range. Not only is asking for that much heat dissipation in a pen-sized package an insane demand, but its also a crapload of power to draw in such a small case. I can imagine its not truly impossible to fit 200-300mW of 532nm in a pen if you're willing to open your wallet wide to a diverse team of very skilled engineers, machinists, etc., but to top it off you want a reasonably priced unit.

One thing to get straight - DX lasers are not reasonably priced for their stated outputs. In fact, $120 for a 200mW green is very unreasonable. Its too low! And you get the quality and power to boot. How many DX 200mW greenies will consistently average 200mW of 532nm over 60 seconds? Probably none in existence. And build quality? If you bought a brand new car for $1,000, what type of expectations would you have? DX lasers are VERY cheap, and mean you aren't out the $400+ of a quality 150mW pen when it fails. Gotta realize though that you face the consequences of that too though! DX lasers are honestly, outright fraud, but they're just so damn cheap that we don't have the heart to call them scams.

Sorry for being so harsh here, but there's a lot of praise for DX, and very little of its due criticism (not that the praise is undue, but there's little a lot of irresponsibility abound when it comes towards letting prospective customers know the disadvantages)

sarbanes said:

 Sad day for me [ch61516]  Based on the performance, I felt I had a quality 532nm pen.  Perhaps I was wrong?  Perhaps this diode was being WAY over driven?  If not, perhaps it is somethhing I did?  Or perhaps the diodes are very sensitive to even modest heat build up (and this warmth I felt in the head after extended usage, actually eroded the life consideribaly (doubt that))?  Who kows?

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Yes, the warmth you felt was just a small portion of the warmth inside the case. Laser diodes are VERY sensitive things that need to be treated with the utmost of care if you want to reap long life and reliability. That heat build up was very likely what killed your laser. I don't know for sure, but I don't think those NewWish diodes were overdriven significantly, but its just a triumph of penny-pinching engineering. Every corner that could be cut, was - even if those corners were neccesary to the life of your laser.

pseudonomen137 said:

Sorry for being so harsh here, but there's a lot of praise for DX, and very little of its due criticism (not that the praise is undue, but there's little a lot of irresponsibility abound when it comes towards letting prospective customers know the disadvantages)

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Thank you, Carter. Have a trophy.

SEE, EVERYBODY! I told you I'm not the only one. Have a nice day.