micaiah
0
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2013
- Messages
- 25
- Points
- 0
I’ve recently become interested in the laser hobby, and after much research and self-education (mostly through LPF threads, stickies, and the Almighty Search Button), I decided to purchase my first custom laser from scumbagatheist (SBA Lasers). I found scumbagatheist’s B/S/T thread for “Custom SBA Kryton Grooves” and after researching the origin of the Kryton Groove I thought it would be great to own a laser made from a host with such a history. Brian (SBA Lasers) was helpful and patient with me, answering my questions, making recommendations, and I feel that he charged a reasonable price for an excellent laser.
So now on to the laser!
I ordered the Kryton Groove polished, which I’m sure required a bit of work to accomplish because they didn’t originally come that way. Additionally, the head had to be specially machined to accommodate my diode of choice, a 120mW 450nm Osram PL450B Diode from DTR. The driver was set at 225mA by SBA and he LPM’d the unit at 181mW. It has a 3-element glass lens and is focusable. I thought it was very professional that SBA sent me a picture of the actual LPM readout together with the laser being tested at the time of measurement. The unit runs on two 18350 batteries—the ones included by SBA were high quality 700mAh AW brand.
The final finish turned out awesome. Check out the following photos.
It looks like the unique features of the Kryton would result in a challenging installation. The driver is mounted to the battery contact board and both are recessed pretty far into the host thus are particularly inaccessible. But, SBA made it happen. See below for a closeup.
Now for the beam! Of course one of the first things I did when I turned the unit on was… light some matches! :eg: When focused properly the laser will produce a nice tight beam that is clearly visible at night. Check it out…
All in all, I am very satisfied with my purchase from SBA.
So now on to the laser!
I ordered the Kryton Groove polished, which I’m sure required a bit of work to accomplish because they didn’t originally come that way. Additionally, the head had to be specially machined to accommodate my diode of choice, a 120mW 450nm Osram PL450B Diode from DTR. The driver was set at 225mA by SBA and he LPM’d the unit at 181mW. It has a 3-element glass lens and is focusable. I thought it was very professional that SBA sent me a picture of the actual LPM readout together with the laser being tested at the time of measurement. The unit runs on two 18350 batteries—the ones included by SBA were high quality 700mAh AW brand.
The final finish turned out awesome. Check out the following photos.
It looks like the unique features of the Kryton would result in a challenging installation. The driver is mounted to the battery contact board and both are recessed pretty far into the host thus are particularly inaccessible. But, SBA made it happen. See below for a closeup.
Now for the beam! Of course one of the first things I did when I turned the unit on was… light some matches! :eg: When focused properly the laser will produce a nice tight beam that is clearly visible at night. Check it out…
All in all, I am very satisfied with my purchase from SBA.
