Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X125

Everything seems ok even if it was so bad before i sent back to them. I got surprised so much, it was like a 30mW laser after 3 days time in perfect conditions ( i mean everything was ok, temperature, batteries etc.. ) I didnt understand anything...

How can this laser react like it has no problem when arrive them ??? I did nothing wrong for 3 days, they suggest allowing for cooling but i never work it above 15 seconds ! They suggest using Duracell Pix, i also used Duracell Plus and Duracell Pix !!?? Offffff....

They said they will decide what to do on Monday ( tomorrow ), i am afraid that they will send the same laser to me and i may have problems again.

Here is the analysis they sent me;

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

beachbumbora said:

Everything seems ok even if it was so bad before i sent back to them. I got surprised so much, it was like a 30mW laser after 3 days time in perfect conditions ( i mean everything was ok, temperature, batteries etc.. ) I didnt understand anything...

How can this laser react like it has no problem when arrive them ??? I did nothing wrong for 3 days, they suggest allowing for cooling but i never work it above 15 seconds ! They suggest using Duracell Pix, i also used Duracell Plus and Duracell Pix !!?? Offffff....

Click to expand...

Sometimes, when the problem is inconsistent, it is based in some connection. I have a eBayser (rated at 200mW, but putting out 100mW). The power started "dimming." Sometimes it would simply drop out completely. Finally one night, while over at Scopeguy20's house, it quit completely. I took it home and decided to play around with it. Since it was already "broke" I couldn't see any harm in it. I found that the driver board was wiggling ever so slightly. I could see that when I pushed on the button, the board would move. I placed a piece of plastic under the board to support it. Voila! 100mW of laser again

Sometimes pushing too "hard" on the button will move the board, but a softer touch will not.

Sometimes the spring that makes the battery connection needs to be lengthened or a small magnet needs to be placed in the end of the tube to "raise" the batteries.

All of those possibilities will allow for the laser to act poorly one time and act fine another. It may be that the laser actually worked fine for them.

Peace,
dave

Peace,
dave

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

I have a Nova in pieces, and the driver board is fully supported by a massive plastic sleeve, not just by the legs of the diode, like in cheap chinese lasers. The diode is also on a massive chunk of brass, which is soldered to the driver board. It's a VERY solid design.


Connection problems can cause flickering of the laser, but the dimming is usually a result of a misalignment. Since the driver is only supported by the diode legs, pressure on the button can actually misalign the diode a bit. I had one laser, that would mode hop, but i could make it go back into TEM00 by varying the pressure on the button.


It's a HORRIBLE design flaw! I have no idea how they can get away with that. But most cheap chinese lasers are like that. The funny thing is, the newer DX200 pens have a plastic piece, that is clearly meant to support the PCB, and would solve this problem. Unfortunately, in ALL three i've seen this in so far, it fell down the barrel closer to the diode, and didn't do ####! Before this, they would use foam, which at least didn't slide away, but wasn't a good enough support.

And in some lasers, they use a piece of folded paper!


When i put some support under the PCB in my DX lasers, they immediately became more stable, but this can also make them go bad. If the diode is not tightened enough, and pressure on the button changes the alignment, supporting the PCB means you have to bend it up a little, and the laser can go bad and never recover from it.

It's like they don't know what they are doing.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

beachbumbora said:

Everything seems ok even if it was so bad before i sent back to them. I got surprised so much, it was like a 30mW laser after 3 days time in perfect conditions ( i mean everything was ok, temperature, batteries etc.. ) I didnt understand anything...

How can this laser react like it has no problem when arrive them ??? I did nothing wrong for 3 days, they suggest allowing for cooling but i never work it above 15 seconds ! They suggest using Duracell Pix, i also used Duracell Plus and Duracell Pix !!?? Offffff....

They said they will decide what to do on Monday ( tomorrow ), i am afraid that they will send the same laser to me and i may have problems again.

Here is the analysis they sent me;

Click to expand...

Oh man, does that mean they'll stick you with a $60 charge for just checking a laser you're having problems with and bought from them?
If the laser is beyond it's warranty period, I could see charging the customer for the return shipping otherwise they are just biting the hands of the customers who feed them and keep them in business.
It's just basic customer support and should be free of charge if the product is under warranty and even if it's not under warranty, only return shipping charges should apply.

It sounds like they just did a quick power test on it and jumped to possible causes. No doubt, if they didn't do anything to fix it, the problem will still be there when you get it back and you'll out $60 and they'll probably tack on the return shipping charges too

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

I'm so happy I spent the extra $$ and got the Optotronics RPL-225. It was a chunk to spend but I have peace of mind knowing he'll take care of his customers should I ever need it.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

woot go opto

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

What is Opto please tell me. Is it a company ? Are there pen style lasers above 100mW at OPTO ? ?

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

beachbumbora said:

What is Opto please tell me. Is it a company ? Are there pen style lasers above 100mW at OPTO ? ?

Click to expand...

He is talking about Optotronics. http://www.optotronics.com/ Jack, AKA bootleg2go is the owner. He is a great guy to deal with. The highest output pen style laser he has is rated at 55mW. I'm sure some of them might have a higher output though.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

optotronics.com the owners name is Jack and goes by bootleg2go on this forum and he gives forum members a 7.5% discount and sells rock solid products with great support and a FULL 1 Year Warranty; the high powered units are not pen sized though.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

beachbumbora:
If you look back at some at some of the posts you'll see I had pretty much the same problem with my X-175 on the day it arrived, out-of-the-box.

It would give me 199mw output, running it about 15-30secs max, then I let sit for an hour and then it only gave me about half of that. I talked to them about it and I was told to let it cool, I asked isn't 1 whole hour enough? The next day I turned the Laser back on again and still only got 100mw. I went to work and came home same day and tried it once again and surprisinly it gave me 199mw continous output, I ran it about 15-20secs max.
I made sure to let it set for an hour and once again, only got 98mw from it.

I got an RM # from Nova to send it back for them to look at it, I didn't send it back until the next, and before I packed it up, it sat all night long and the next morning it would never go over 100mw, so back it went.

I sent email to them afterwards and told them it must be an intermittent problem and updated them on my results.

I told them I won't be one bit surprised IF when they get it back it is at 199mw again, but will not stay that way or anything even close to it. They should let it sit and try again later, it will fail if they try it a couple of times even with a cooling period. I also told them IF their results show it to be "in spec" then they are to refund the Laser purchase under their guarantee and I'd be done with it.

Well it took them over 2 weeks to get back to me and yes they said it arrived and ran in-spec, but they did get it to fall way under spec going back & forth with it. They determined it was a thermal issue with the laser itself and a replacement is on it's way to me they say. They sent me the analysis like you got and also one of the replacement Laser and if it works as "shown" the replacement "should" be better, sorry but I don't have the analysis report with me right now to show you the results. They gave me the bit about the batteries and cooling down cycle when I get the replacement laser too.

As they say, the jury is still out on this issue; so far I'm not impressed and see by a few posts on here I'm not the only one, so I think Nova QA is slipping. I have high hopes for the replacement, but IF it works as poorly as the 1st one did, I'm sending it back for a refund and I'll be done with them. Yes I do have a RPL that I love, but I still wanted a powerful pen sized laser too.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

Hi Electron,

Thank you so much for your detailed answer. I really dont know what to do and still waiting about my Nova X125.

I would really like to buy one from optotronics because everyone here says thats good but i usually use laser pointers for fun only, when going to bars, clubs or outside at night. And it will be hard to carry a big laser like those.

By the way, and you using lasers for what, hobby like mine or for other things ?

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

beachbumbora:

Wait to see what they really decide to do for you in the end. IF they say they are sending you back your original laser, exercise your right and get a refund; if they tell you they already shipped it before they contacted you, well that is their problem. Refuse the package and notify your card issuer, that is nothing more than a strong-arm method of attempting to force you to keep it.

By all means keep posting any info you have as you get it, Nova in the end will suffer IF they don't take care of "their" customer, sounds like they are biting the hand that feeds them.  As fast as they established a good reputation on the web for their products, it could go away even faster; I hope for everyone's sake the last few problem lasers while inexcusable was simply a mistake. Take a short look around at this forum and you'll find 3 Nova Lasers that went back to them for issues in a short time-frame, 2 X-175's & 1 X-125; there maybe more but I haven't dug really deep or searched on other forums yet.

Nova Lasers needs to STEP IT UP  :-? as in QA.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

Electron:

This is indeed a very odd problem. All three of our lasers "failed" on the same day. Mine did so after half an hour of playing outside, and another half of cooling. After that it would only peak at 135mW and average at 125, instead of 176/168mW..

No amount of cooling (forced or not) helped. But the next day it worked again. This is something i don't understand. It is as if the crystals would get tired or something. It can't be from heat.

Right now it works as it should and this happens rarely or never. My laser is from CNI directly.

I don't know if you guys remember, but when the more powerful lasers appeared, Nova was forced to change their standards of testing from three 20second test peak/average to one 30 second test. CNI was giving them grief, when they were sending back lasers, that CNI considered good.

Of course, even with this taken into account, a laser should still always work at its specified powers, if allowed to cool in between. There is simply no logical reason i can think of, that it shouldn't. There must be a reason, but i don't understand it.

Once my laser is out of warranty, i am putting it into a massive body, for proper heatsinking and more stable power. But the strangeness of this problem might actually prevent this from doing any good...



Bora: Tell them to repeat the test a couple of times with cooling in between, to discover the problem (like Electron did).
Use the same exact words if you have to.

I just regret you did not react more calmly, when it happened, so you could have done more tests and we would have more info about its behavior.

I asked you to describe exactly what you did to test it, how many times and how much time in between. With more info, it would be easier to tell them what to do. But a repeated test with cooling in between should reveal the problem. I'm doing this test on my laser now.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

beachbumbora:

Any word or update on your Laser yet? I was told 2 weeks ago now, that my Laser was being replaced and was on it's way to me, they even sent me an analysis of the new one too. However I still haven't recieved it, nor has Nova sent me a tracking number OR replied to my email asking where is the Laser and/or tracking number.

This is just getting plain crazy, I've spent my money & have been w/o the laser for nearly a month now; I'm about to give up in ever seeing it again, and going to Plan B. No pun intended, but I can get it from China faster than it coming out of Canada..........Hello Nova!! anyone home!!!! :'( :'( :'(

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

electron said:

beachbumbora:

Any word or update on your Laser yet? I was told 2 weeks ago now, that my Laser was being replaced and was on it's way to me, they even sent me an analysis of the new one too. However I still haven't recieved it, nor has Nova sent me a tracking number OR replied to my email asking where is the Laser and/or tracking number.

This is just getting plain crazy, I've spent my money & have been w/o the laser for nearly a month now; I'm about to give up in ever seeing it again, and going to Plan B. No pun intended, but I can get it from China faster than it coming out of Canada..........Hello Nova!! anyone home!!!! :'( :'( :'(

Click to expand...

I hope nova isn't going the way of wicked lasers....
This can't be right.

Re: Finally i recieved analysis of my returned X12

I will never buy a laser from Nova again, buy a 200 from DX, thats it.

If it is bad, throw it away, but you cant throw away Nova, because they took so much money from me !