Super Beast Green

I can confirm you can use 3.7V batteries. I wired up a 18650 battery fully charged to 4.2V. Worked fine.

The output varies wildly using the Tenergy 3V. When first started with a fully charged battery, it jumps up to incredible power. But it quickly drops back quickly as it heats up. I measured a peak of 105mW, then it dropped back to around 55mW. After a few minutes, it will continue to drop. This makes it very difficult to measure IR without steady readings.




The Beast is easy to take apart. You just unscrew the lens cap and access the retaining ring holding in the module. It unscrews easily.



There is no insulation between the battery and the module.



Here it is dismantled



The module is well made, and different from the standard 5mW pen module.

^^ Awesome info man. I think I'm going to order another one of these this week!

Droid said:

Ah what the heck. I just went ahead and bought one. I was going to be laserless for another month since I had to send back my defective o-like laser. At least I'll have this to play around with until I get my new o-like now. I feel to weird not having some kind of laser close by to mess with from time to time :beer:

Click to expand...

Hell yea! Well I just ordered another one myself so I'll let you guys know if the quality is consistent.

ZapU said:

My Tenergy 3V 750mAh LiPo came in today.
Using the dedicated Tenergy smart charger, the batteries tested at 3.82V after charging.

Anyway, popped it in the Beast.
Would you believe 95mW peak? No mods, just waaaay overspec.
Settled down around 75mW after the first 30 seconds. Didn't run it over 1 minute. Nervous about such high output.

Click to expand...

Dude that is freakin' nuts!!! I need to get myself one of these Laser Power Meters and test all my own shiat! :drool:

Well my "beast" arrived today so I thought I'd do a little review. It came with a 3v panasonic branded (no mAH listed) CR123A that measured 3.39v After letting it warm up for about an hour it peaked at 48mw for awhile then dropped to about 42-43mw. Not bad.

Next I tried one of the 3.6v (no mAh listed) Juice branded batteries that that yobresal included with the 445 I got from him. It was close to a full charge at 4.11v. It peaked a little less at 47mw but was stable at 45mw. I'll trade 1mw of peak power for 3mw of stable power. This is the battery that'll live in "the beast" after the included primary croaks since its mate was DOA.

Finally I used one of the 750mAh AW branded LiIons I bought for my 445. It measured right in the middle at 3.75v. Once again it peaked at 47mw and was stable at 45-46mw. After testing I put the AWs in the charger and will test it again once they're fully charged.

Finally since I don't have an IR filter on hand I put my laser glasses from OEM in front of it which are rated at OD3+ for 532nm. There was barely any green showing on the LPM sensor and measured about 15mw of IR leaving ~30mw of 532 which is pretty good for a cheapie laser pointer IMO.

The tests were done about 10 minutes apart to allow it to cool back to the ambient room temp. I tried to take the thing apart to measure the current across the diode but couldn't get the retaining ring to budge. They must have used a thread locker during assembly. Instead I ran it for about a minute while measuring the battery draw and it maxed at 370ma using the Juice battery. I'm not sure how/what that equates to for mA output to the diode though.

Overall this is a pretty nice laser for the $18.99 he's charging and I honestly wouldn't bother with the pen version unless you really want the pen style. I bet someone with the right knowhow *cough*joyrob, FP, mohernberg*cough* could make a small heatsink that would allow you to stick an aixiz module in it.

Now to get this thing apart and mod that evil push button switch into a clicky....

^^ Excellent Post!!! Thanks for measuring the IR output!

I ordered 2 of these as stocking-stuffers; thank you for the great recommendation!

Question: I saw the link to this battery above; can anyone tell me if it is the same as this 4-pack+charger? They look the same spec-wise, but the packaging is compeltely different ...

sampson: never being one to follow rules, I tried the rep-thing even though I have no rep-power, and again it claims to have let me do it ... I figure, even if I can't really give you rep, it's the thought, coupled with effort, that counts, right? Let me know if your rep actually saw my feeble attempt ...

After charging my AWs the output was pretty much identical to the Juice battery. One thing I should have clarified is I let the laser physically warm up or about an hour before I used it since it had spent hours in a delivery truck with temps well below freezing.

If I can get it apart I may try to tweak the pot a bit even though I'm really a fan of pot modding.

Bobby-

I think the only difference between the ones you linked to is the first one is the retail package version and the others are the OEM version. Those are different from the one that ZapU linked to though. They're both LiIons but they use different chemicals (for lack of better terms) to create the power.

LtKernelPanic: Thanks for the reply. ZapU's battery in post 30 was a 750mAh, but sampson's suggestion from post 16 was a 900mAh. I was operating under the assumption that more mAh would mean more stable burn-time (hopefully not off-base there?).

The ones I linked are also listed as 900mAh, so I figured the should do as well as the 900 sampson listed ... :undecided:; they also came in a 4-pack w/ charger at the higher capacity for only $12 more than ZapU's 2x750 ... besides, I was tempted by batteryjunction linking them in the "you may also like" section at the bottom of ZapU's linked page, and thought, "not sure what LiFePO4 buys me, but double the batts with 20% more capacity, I'm there! :takeit:" ... I guess I'll find out if my decision was bad or not ...

Hmmm ... just looked at the actual URLs ... "rc390reliba" versus "4parc390reli" ... look pretty similar ...

Thanks,
Bobby

Whoops. I missed sampson's post about ordering a battery since I was just scanning posts for links. The batteries you ordered will be fine. The big difference between LiFePO4 and standard LiIons from what I understand are that they are a lot less likely to fail spectacularly if something really bad happens. The trade off is they don't have as much capacity. There's a thread over in the batteries forum about them.

If you haven't used rechargeable LiIons before I would suggest reading the info over in the safety forum. Don't let the potential danger scare you. If you use good quality batteries and monitor them while charging to make sure they're not getting excessively hot you'll be fine. However know what to do and more importantly what *not* to do if one does go boom is something you should know.

Bobby said:

I ordered 2 of these as stocking-stuffers; thank you for the great recommendation!

Question: I saw the link to this battery above; can anyone tell me if it is the same as this 4-pack+charger? They look the same spec-wise, but the packaging is compeltely different ...

sampson: never being one to follow rules, I tried the rep-thing even though I have no rep-power, and again it claims to have let me do it ... I figure, even if I can't really give you rep, it's the thought, coupled with effort, that counts, right? Let me know if your rep actually saw my feeble attempt ...

Click to expand...

Bobby.. I checked.. no points but it did have an entry on my CP Thanks for the thought!!!

As LtKernelPanic said.. you'll be fine with those batteries.. the Beast seems to be fine with whatever physically fits :eg: and yea.. definitely read up on Li-ion if you haven't yet.

Has anyone ever got a module from this seller? If the pointers are this hot I wonder what his 150mw modules put out?

sampson said:

Bobby.. I checked.. no points but it did have an entry on my CP Thanks for the thought!!! .

Click to expand...

Oh, well -- I'll keep trying on the points until something happens (I'm guessing sometime after the predicted 1,000's post - of which this is # 10 :cryyy...

sampson said:

As LtKernelPanic said.. you'll be fine with those batteries.. the Beast seems to be fine with whatever physically fits :eg: and yea.. definitely read up on Li-ion if you haven't yet.

Click to expand...

I just finished reading through the Battery posts, and I can now see why there is concern -- I will definitely make sure of polarity, watch for warmth when charging, not leave unattended, etc. Thanks for the vote of confidence on the chosen batts -- I'll let you know how the testing goes after they (and the Beasts) arrive.

Now, if only I can save up for nospin's LPM as my next step, I'll be able to tell what they actually deliver...

... then on to some kits, then, ... Hmmm -- I forsee this hobby becoming quite paycheck-hungry...


Thanks again,
Bobby

hydguy said:

Has anyone ever got a module from this seller? If the pointers are this hot I wonder what his 150mw modules put out?

Click to expand...

I got a 150mW green module from his roommate "laseryork". It puts out over 100mW but I don't have the numbers in front of me. I'm getting ready to do several reviews and that is one of them. This module from "itemquickship" is the same and $20 cheaper.

I think I need one of these beasts

Droid said:

Buy the radiant alpha LPM. it's only $99. Except the dang thing is never in stock. Been waiting for months.

Click to expand...

Do you have a convenient link?