CNI GLP-589 noob review

Some time ago I saw a guy at SELEM with a 593.5nm pointer and just couldn't believe it. I've owned a yellow HeNe and a Krypton that put out yellow in the past and to see this in a pointer, that was just cool. I waited a while to see if the prices would come down and I'm glad I did, not only did the price come down a bit over the years but a new wavelength came along as well. I finally decided it was time to get one so I ordered directly from CNI and exchanged quite a few emails with Ava, who was very courteous and professional. I settled on a 1mW GLP-589 pointer. The price was a little over $300 shipped. It took a little over 3 weeks for the laser to ship, which really wasn't a problem since I've been eyeing these for a few years. When the laser arrived I was a little put off by the fact they don't include a CR2 battery. My frustration was swept aside when I threw in a battery and saw first light from it. Wow, it is a very nice yellow color, exactly what I was looking for. I don't own a meter so I can't say exactly what the output power is, but I know it's well over 1mW. I'll have the output tested at SELEM next month, if I had to guess, I'd say anywhere between 5 and 10mW. I was also surprised that the output is rather stable, the beam profile is a bit elongated but is satisfactory to me. No clue on battery life yet, collectively it's probably been on for about 5 minutes so far. It only takes 1 CR2 and the output is pulsed.

All in all, this was well worth the expense and wait, now to find some rechargeable CR2's!

Pics!

I thought the label here was humorous, taking the laser out of the box voids the warranty?!

Nice review. Great pics as well.:beer:

If you need that thing tested you could always send it to me.

Very cool. I think the warning is for the label, not the laser. The label has the serial number on it.

cool it has a pulsed driver

I believe all the GPL 589s do. The one Avery had was pulsed too.

Tech_Junkie said:

I believe all the GPL 589s do. The one Avery had was pulsed too.

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It must be the 1mW version.

I had a "5mW" and the output is continuous.
I like pulsed lasers,though. The dashed line is cool.

Nice Review. Still Never seen this WL in person but lots have said its one of the coolest to see.

+:beer:

Great Laser you have there !
Can someone explain what makes this WL so expensive. I really tried the search, could not find something explaining.

Nice Pic's!

I'm waiting the same!!

@Dawinzi

It's the precise hand-done alignment of the crystals from memory which is why they're so expensive

ok, didn't knew that. So it seams we can not expect lower prices near future?

Not gonna happens

Unless theyre diode.

Strange observation -

Long story short, someone shipped me a 473nm GLP that was meant to be shipped to zdarkazn. Before I forwarded the package along to its rightful recipient, zdarkazn allowed me to power it up and test it. In the process, I noticed that it too was pulsed.

What is that ?

Personally, I'm not sure whether I like / hate the effect that has. My eyes are really sensitive to pulsed light sources. Some car tail-lights drive me nuts because they use pulsed LEDs. I'd be curious to know the rationale here.

Makes me whish could afford one at the moment. It's on my long term list though.

rhd said:

I'd be curious to know the rationale here.

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Pretty sure they are able to reach higher powers with the pump diode if its pulsed.