Help Please!!! Is my laser up to spec???

Hello I just received a 300mW green FireDragon III today and it doesn't seem to be up to par to me. I can barely see the beam indoors with little sunlight. It takes 1 minute and 20 seconds to burn through a black cd case. Is this about right for 300 milli Watts??? I thought it would be much faster than that. Others with similar powered green can you tell me how long it takes or should take to burn through a black cd case for you? I think I might have got a dud but maybe I'm just used to the nearly 2 watt blue laser I have. Oh by the way when I point it at the cd case the point of the laser dot is smaller than the blue one so it seems to be pretty concentrated already.

Its hard to say, what exactly is "little sunlight"? I dont actually own a 300 mW, but I would have thought the beam would be quite visible indoors. I can just see a 30 mW 532 beam indoors and during the day.

Wrt burning is the laser focused on the CD case, or is it focused to infinity? That will make a big difference...

Maybe someone can LPM your laser for you? :beer:

The beams is very small it is supposed to be focusable but it takes a flat head screw driver from the looks of it.

It is very likely that you unit is underspec. A 300mW 532nM would be highly visible in "kinda" dark places. Also there are a few things to take in consideration when you talk about the time it takes to burn through a plastic cd case.

- Is the laser focussed to infinity or focussed?

A focused 300mW green can burn through a cd in seconds whilst a non focussed 300mW could take considerably longer.

My recommendation is to LPM it. This is the only way to be sure! Send it to a member with an LPM that is nearby your home.

Greetings,

Yeah you have to carefully turn the lens nut (bit with the 2 groves that takes the screwdriver) without damaging or scratching the lens. Normally theres a special key you need to adjust it.

Wrt focusing you need to make sure you have the smallest dot possible on the surface you are trying to burn. The simplest way to do this is to de-focus the lens from infinity and then move the CD case away from the laser. Youll see the dot get either bigger or smaller. If the latter move until you have the smallest dot, if the former move back towards the laser. If you cant get a small dot move the lens again...itll be trial and error. :beer:

Edit: The dot of a good DPSS should be a nice small round dot (TEM00) and will be nothing like your multimode 445 "bar"! Even at infinity it will probably be much smaller!

I have a 70mW an the beam is fairly visible indoors, In day! with curtains opens. It also burns through black garbage bag in less than 5seconds. I think you got a bad one

I'd think that's under spec. Although upload some beam shots.