WHY sellers cannot say us mw using nimh and lion?instead alkalines

hello. there is a big question here... everyone can see the output of a laser... but... specially for laser PEN that use 2xaaa batteries.... in some cases.. the problem is that the test is done with fresh alkalines..(1.5/1.6 v)..but we know...that only a little part of laser enthusiast uses alkalines or energizer lithium!most use nimh batteries..!that are from 1.38v to 1.22 usually!

i have a kaleidoscopic(i made a review)30mw that seems to work very well with nimh... also at 1.25 volt. but.. i never understand....what is the requested voltage for a diode laser??usually 3.6?3?..what makes the difference...the driver? i am not very good in these things.....the only thing that i know..is that there are some driver that are regulated to accept from 3 volt until 2.4v...so.. very good with nimh. and other that request from 4.2 to 3.6 about.

hoc can i definetively iunderstand this things? for example optotronics guarantee true mw using 1.5v (3v totally)..any say TO NOT USE higher voltage. so... i think this kind of driver is good also for nimh.

another example are the diode from susie.. that can accept also 3.6(4.2peak)v....i've ordered one 120mw pen ...but i heard that the power using 2 nimh is lower... id it could be real. if a driver can accept 4.2 volt... surely is nont optimized for nimh ...at total 2.7v about.

so... why someone do driver at 3v... someone at 3.6... i thought that EVERY PEN LASER ...use a driover or diode( please explain me) that is perfect for 3v or under 3v... and that every other laser( handeld or using cr123)..is made for voltage 3.6 and higher.

i can say that i ised my kaleidoscopic 30mw with a 10440 and i didn't find any difference!maybe a LITTLE improved burning ability.. but just little!bightness...mmhh...i can say quite the same.. but PROBABLY the same!.....

could be nice that sellers start to check the power of the laser with NIMH batteries!!!hei...the continuous war to SAVE THE WORLD.. is now... and alkalines are not cheat to use in laser. we use NIMH...so we MUST REQUEST the power with it. i think tnat if everyone start to question at seller this.... every seller tell us mw with nimh.. .... and using nimh the earth will be a little better.........

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The main reason higher voltage batteries give you more output is that cheaper drivers tend to rely on battery voltage to give he diode the right about of current. When you put in lithiums it has a higher voltage reference and sends more current to the diode, getting you a higher output. In some cases this could be bad and possibly cause damage to the diode.

Most chinese companies don't have the equipment to test the output, and the companies that produce the lasers don't seem to want to be bothered with actually output binning their lasers correctly.

If you were to try to deliver a product that meets specifications, why on earth would you power it by AAA cells? These things are consumer products, and most of the itended audience could not care less if the product is 50% under spec or over - its just a bright green dot on the wall in either case.

Given the current demands of the more powerful lasers (at least a few 100 mA), NiMH's will power them better than alkalines (apart from the first few seconds) anyways.

Working from 2 nimh or alkaline cells is always tricky from an electronics standpoint. The voltage is unstable, and very low to begin with - doesnt leave much room to design around.

Laser drivers are current sources. While battery voltage is nice to look at, available current from the cells is important.
Mike

While a 1.56v primary cell seems like it's much better then a 1.25v rechargeable it isn't except when 100% charged, anything less then 100% and the rechargeable wins every time due to voltage drop.

A 1.56v primary when under use drops to say 1.30v or less. A 1.25v rechargeable doesn't have this effect and maintains it's 1.25v till it goes near flat then quickly drops off resulting in a laser pointer that just quits working.

Hemlock_Mike said:

Laser drivers are current sources. While battery voltage is nice to look at, available current from the cells is important.

Click to expand...

The problem is maitaining the current for a given voltage. Most pump diodes drop about 1.9 volt at normal operating current, which leaves about 0.5 volts for regulation running off 2 aaa batteries. Many drivers drop out of full regulation by that point, and the current becomes quite dependent on precies battery voltage - regardless if thats caused by a low cell voltage (nimh) or high internal resistance (alkaline).

If the driver is designed well it would perform better with a bit more voltage (such as 3.6 from a lithium) keeping the current regulated. Many practical drivers arent designed that well and will run too much current at higher voltage.

Because it's just way too much work. They spend a few minutes building these cheap pointers and they aren't going to bother with testing power output with several different kinds of batteries. Hell, they don't even test with alkalines, they just guess, or shoot it into a power meter for a half a second.

It would be like buying a car and have them give you different mile per gallon figures by testing with 100 different sets of tires. Too much work.

it maybe because typical users do not use their lasers frequently enough to warrant the replacing of alkaline cells with rechargeables. So if they did switch over to measurements based on NiMH that information would only be useful to you and a handful of others, not the general public...or in this case the primary audience the company is trying to market towards.

Giving measurements of output using a NiMH cell to many would be analogous to buying a fillet of salmon and the direction packet indicate the cooktime required using a propane torch =P

I have that exact same 30mW kaleidoscopic green. Now, I have a box full of new AAA alkalines, but they are no-name ones (bullet-line? what the pork?) I get about 2 minutes runtime, after which the laser just drops out. I noticed that if I pushed the switch harder, it would dim. It was brightest with the least amount of pressure on the switch, but just enough to activate the switch. I don't know if this is a bad connection on the driver or what, but just another detail I wanted to mention.

I was thinking this would be a good excuse to get some rechargable Ni-MH batteries, since I believe the problem lies in either voltage sag of the cells or just plain ol' high internal resistance. So my question is mainly pointed towards Realista.

Have you tried using Ni-MH's or single Li-Ions with this laser? Based on my description, should I try to contact the seller to get a replacement or do you think that the problem is just a bad power source? It was a beautiful laser when I first turned it on. The beam was very crisp, it was well-focused, very bright, and was almost instant-on (seemed to take .5-1 second to reach full brightness). I just wish it would stay bright like the blu-ray.

Thanks for any insight to my problem!

(edit: oops, sorry, thread died quite a few months back..)

yes i tried also 10440 lion.. but the power is about the same........ my laser has a BEAUTIFUL divergence(bought from DX)... mut now has some problems with switch...it loose power... i think it has a bad switch.... instead.... my 50mw bottle shape from focalprice is very powerfull... in cold temperature(winter) it is over 50mw for firsts seconds..(sometime it burn matchs).

however.. the power needed from this laser is good at 1.3v x2. every bugger voltage ...does not increase power