Can someone please explain how to remove the water proof lens?

Kind of wish I bid on this one too :-/

I was actually wondering about the waterproofing lens too. I don't exactly go diving with my lasers.. or really out in bad weather, so a gain of even ~50mw would be worth it imo.

4 times more light to appear twice as bright... I have ALOT to learn it seems.

I'm expecting a 200mw greenie from o-like soon, so maybe a comparison off of that will be better. The 200mw one I have now could be anything between 100 and 200...

Unfortunately after partying last night I passed out before taking any night shots.. I was kind of

Cheers.

Hope I don't need to do it, because I hate to mess around with these delicate and expensive things. Always fear that I'm gonna break it.

So in theory your laser could deliver even more than 600mw. That's impressive. It sounds like a simple task, removing the lens. Nice to know there's an option. If new heads are sold separately one could make one with and one without water proofing for an easy swap.

Actually I really like this host. Since the end tube is unscrewable one could shorten lasers lengt quite a bit by using smaller 3.7V batteries with a shorter one. IF there is one that fits of course.

And there's actually a pot.. Won't touch that but there are possibilies with this one.



If only the power was up to (beyond) the spec.

Judging by the decription, it's incredibly simple. As long a you have something to twist the inner tube with. The important thing AFAIK is not to scratch / polute any lens.

@Ricochet

How much force did you have to apply to unscrew it? I tried with mine with just my hands and a rag for friction.

I'm kind of tempted to remove the lens now too

@InfinitusEquitas

You mean the middle part on the picture? I barely touched it and it uncrewed.
I have not tried to fiddle with the lens part yet, so that I don't know.

Let us know how it goes.

@Ricochet

Exactly, yes. I was thinking of maybe getting tools to do it, my pliers are just a little too small. While I won't win any strength competitions, so far I've never had issues opening up anything else

I'm much more curious about getting the top off to take off the waterproofing lens, but really don't want to mess with an expensive laser

Interestingly enough, I left the laser unattended for about 10 seconds, came back and it started smoking a yellow envelope that was sitting 5 feet away... it wasn't really focused either. I repeated the experiment and it does smoke a yellow envelope from 5 feet away in 1-2 seconds when focused. I wonder if that's any indication of power.

I'm thinking maybe the issue with the burning ability of mine might have more to do with it being incredibly hard to focus, than lack of power.. I can hope at least. If the new Radiant Alphas ever come out.. I'm gonna try to get one. Not knowing exact numbers is driving me nuts.

Until than I'm gonna be busy but I'll try to put together a thermal power meter by next weekend to get at least some kind of objective measurement.

I'll be sure to keep you and everyone posted on my findings. Most of my friends eyes glaze over when I start to talk about lasers, nice to talk to people with similar interests.

Just FYI it's back:

400mW green laser torch /focusable/waterproof [OL-532-350] - $214.00 : Welcome to O-Like.com, Your source for laser products

@InfinitusEquitas

My focusing head unsrewed easily. It did took some turns counter clockwise. I have not tried to remove the lens or modify anything yet but once you unscrew the head, the w.p lens is off anyway. Then you can compare the burning power. The focused point should be around 1 inch from the aperture.

I'd say that burning a yellow envelope from that distance isn't bad. Mine does burn fine but my concern is about its lack of any power gain over a 30USD red laser other than the brightness of the beam.

For those that might be interested, I made a video comparing burning abilities of this versus a 200mw red dilda.. Both are perfectly focused. Batteries in the green one are fully charged and measured 4.17V, while in the red one they are of unknown state.

Hmm my dilda 200 never was that fast .. took like 7 -10 seconds to burn trough cd case weird... anyway's the green is WAY to slow though

nice demo video +rep

@Ricochet

Is that with or without the waterproof lens? Unfortunately mine does not seem to have anywhere near those burning capabilities. Compared to a $55 red, it is not nearly as good for burning

I'll play around with it some more and take off the waterproofing top today to test it out again. I did take it outside last night, it was raining so no night shots, but it looked pretty powerful.

I'm waiting on a fourth laser from o-like, but so far the 1.2W tactical and this green have been underwhelming. I'm tempted to send the lasers back for exchange, or in the case of the green for a refund. If the third laser comes in and is not up to spec, and if the replacement parts don't fix the issues, unfortunately I'm going to have to have to boycott o-like and post a rather negative review. Definitely not up to their usual reputation

I find that 532nm doesn't burn as well as the higher frequencies like 445 and 405. This makes sense because of the additional energy in the light at higher wavelengths. another major characteristic is absorption and 532ish seems to be reflected by most materials than shorter or longer wavelengths. even lab quality visible blocking filters will show a peak of transmission around 532ish. so there is something about that range that is not well absorbed.

finally, many higher power cheaper 532 systems will use larger crystals to distribute the power of the pump LD over a larger area. when you measure the power on an LPM the entire beam area is measure however because the beam is larger, there is less power per unit area and this will negatively affect burning capability.

personally, i find 445/405 to be better for burning applications and 532 is better for visibility. i find that my 500mw 405 burns only slightly worse than my 1.2W 445. this makes sense because 405 will contain more energy and also can be focused to a smaller focal point area because of a number of optical characteristics. that's another issue with 532 is that the larger beam profile along with the lower wavelength and it wont be able to focus to as small a point as other lasers with smaller beam profiles and lower wavelengths.

bottom line is that 532 is generally not as good a burner as 445/405 but its superior for visibility because our eyes are more sensitive at the 532ish wavelength range. if you want burning power go for brute force power with 445 or with photon power with 405.

I think the reason the reds work pretty good for burning is that they get better absorbed by materials. so even red seems to be a better choice than green.

I agree with what plexus wrote.
But in that video it looks like it's near as bright as the cheap red dilda...
I thought it would be atleast 2 times brighter but maybe the video shows it all different
( can't say much about pics of video's ).
I hope mine comes this week, and it better be up to spec Grrr..

@plexus

Very interesting observation about 405 vs 445. I have the 1.2W Tactical from O-like and it burns things FAST. I mean I have to be pretty careful where the focused dot ends up... My desk has a scorch mark now

The reason I love green is the visibility. Far far superior to red, and Much more visible that 445.

How is the visibility of the 405nm? It would complete my setup, but I'm not sure I want a hard to see beam.

Regarding the video... That dilda may be overspec, but the green should still appear to be brighter. Kind of strange that it's not, I mean from what I'v read, green should appear 5 times brighter than red. Also note, in what seems to be a brightly lit room, beam is not visible at all.

Also FYI apparently there is yet another chinese holiday going on right now. April 03-06... I get very impatient waiting for parts and lasers

@InfinitusEquitas

With the w.p lens.

@plexus

Thanks for the info. That may explain it. I didn't take all the variables into account. I was also not aware of the fact that a 532 is harder to focus due to its nature. I thought it was all up to optics. I will have to add a 405/445 to my collection at some point then

@weeba2kv

The brightness in that video is missleading. I can easily look at the red dot without glasses at that distance. The green will blind you for sure. So I'm actually considering better glasses than o-likes for that reason.

@InfinitusEquitas

You're right. The "dilda" .. (never get used to that name) is driven at 7.2V instead of 6V. So it may as well be closer to 250mw or more. When it comes to the green beam, it is only visible at some angles, especially on pictures.

In general I am starting to think that this one may be close to spec anyway but greenies won't be fun enough till they reach at least 1W.. but that's my opinion. If you're upgrading from a 50mw, you'll probably be amazed

That is what i mean hehe cause i was like hmmmmm if that green should be 400 mW it's MEGA underpowered cause it looks like a 50 mW in that video.
So ok it is much more brighter in real ok cool gives me a lilbit more of a smile now
And i forgot that i turned the pot in my dilda back to hmm let's say 25 % ( i forgot ) that's why mine burns so slow trough a cd case.

@Ricochet

I'm upgrading from a cheap "200mw" greenie. I guess I was expecting more of a WOW factor, figuring my current one is probably ~100-150mw.

Taking everything into account though, mine definitely under performs when compared to yours in that video. I'm gonna see if I can find an identical cd case.... stopped using non flash storage about a yeah ago... no more cd cases lying around :/

finding focus with glasses on this one is very very difficult, and the beam is definitely a lot thicker than my other green lasers, so the spread probably accounts for a lot of burning ability.

Thing is, it was this video that kind of made me pull the trigger on this laser...

YouTube - review and burning with o-like 400mW green laser

Definitely a slightly older, different model... look at what it does to a match though.

This is the OLD 400mw Laser ... you can see this at the frontcap.. it has 2 holes ... (he has to focus it with a thing .. sorry i dont know what this is)

I understood that, but considering that this is a newer version, I kind of expected it to act the same or better.

I know I expect 2011 cars to act better than 1989 cars - at least in most criteria.

Yeah ! exactly

Cause that video made me order 1 aswel ,and that other video where the guy burns white paper with black inc text o well that shows atleast a good burn property
I expect a power output ( >350mW ) that is without IR !

Some things: its not just the optics that will allow for a small focal point - its the original beam diameter and divergence (which are a factor of optics ultimately, in the laser) and the wavelength of the light.

its not entirely clear from one of the video's i watched, how focused to a point the guy had his OL-532 (that's the laser model we are talking about in this thread). he may have had it focused to a point and put the materials at the focal point. in that case, yes you can burn a white envelope. but i know with me OLNG-350 that the beam diameter when as closely collimated as possible, is not enough to even really burn through a CD case that well, because the beam diameter is so wide. however focused down and it will burn through quickly.

this is a pet peeve of mine on this forum especially in the reviews: people post videos and reviews but they don't clearly document their methodologies. this is especially apparent with IR measurements which you have probably read me complaining about. we need to know your methodology and we need to know things like, how you have the laser focused. seeing those matches burn like that, or the speed through a CD case, doesn't say very much if its being done at or near a focal point.

the beam out of my OLNG-350 is quite wide. sure there is 350-500mw of non-IR in that beam, but its not going to burn very well when its collimated. this is why i ordered the OL-350, so i can do a direct comparison between the OLNG and a 250mw labby I have. and also measure the IR using well documented IR filters.

hmmm , rayfoss offers a 300mw version ... it looks the same as in the video

www.rayfoss.com