CNI PGL-III-473-C 50mw

Bought this via Glenn in GB6, late last year. The review has been a long time coming for various tedious reasons. Anyway, I finally managed to do a run on my newly calibrated laserbee this morning. Results below:



For this test I really pushed the unit. Ran it for a full six minutes and it got pretty warm. Hopefully haven't done any damage.... The figures are pretty spectacular. The graph is at five second intervals. Peak five second power is 117mw. Peak 1 second is 122mw. Between minutes three and four it was averaging over a 110mw. For the first two minutes (which is probably the most relevant in practice) the average is over 90mw. After four minutes, power starts dropping off rapidly as you can see, and was down to 30mw when I stopped the trial.

Beam at the aperture is tiny - just over 1mm circular. Divergence is ~ 1.5mrad (5mm at 3 metres)

Overall an amazing performance from a 50mw rated unit and quite remarkable for a handheld blue.

I won't post a pic since my camera is rubbish, but it is all on the CNI website: http://www.cnilaser.com/PDF/PGL-III-C-473.pdf. A very solidly built unit. Loads of safety protection (key lock, dongle, shutter, led warning light). Battery is a single 18650. I use a 3000mAh ultrafire.

One of the reasons for the delay in this post was that when it first arrived, the unit had an electrical fault. A loose contact I suspect. Anyway, CNI sorted it out (via Glenn) and it seems fine now.

Lastly, many thanks indeed to Glenn for obtaining this unit for me, sorting out the fault with CNI and generally being a top man and a joy to deal with.

David

That is one powerful blue!
I have one of these 50mW models on the way (if CNI ever delivers!).
I'll hope the guys & gals at CNI will supply me with something as spectacular as that.

Very nice... Blues are so unpredictable, usually overspec though...

Thanks davidgdg, I tried to light a match with that one without a lens and... no dice, but I bet if the match was just right...
It goes without saying the beam was miraculous! -Glenn

Nice!!! May i ask how much you paid?

Silvershot said:

Nice!!! May i ask how much you paid?

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Sure. US$ 690 + a few dollars shipping back to Glenn to sort out the electrical issue.

nice rew.... dadiv.... but can you upload some pics????

it is the first time i hear an OVER 100mw blue laser! every laser i've seen in this forum at 473mw.. is about 10... 20... someone has 30mw optotronics that peak 50.....but i think you have THE STRONGEST BLUE LASER POINTER IN THIS FORUM.........

you.."must" add some photos here.. and in the multimedia thread we need high quality beamshoots of blue power.... (wow.. you can burn with blue XD)

realista said:

nice rew.... dadiv.... but can you upload some pics????

it is the first time i hear an OVER 100mw blue laser! every laser i've seen in this forum at 473mw.. is about 10... 20... someone has 30mw optotronics that peak 50.....but i think you have THE STRONGEST BLUE LASER POINTER IN THIS FORUM.........

you.."must" add some photos here.. and in the multimedia thread we need high quality beamshoots of blue power.... (wow.. you can burn with blue XD)

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Ive seen 300mW from a forum member!

davidgdg said:

For this test I really pushed the unit. Ran it for a full six minutes and it got pretty warm ... Peak five second power is 117mw. ... For the first two minutes (which is probably the most relevant in practice) the average is over 90mw. ... I won't post a pic since my camera is rubbish ... Lastly, many thanks indeed to Glenn...

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Thanks for pushing the unit - after all, it's a PGL-III-C host and one would expect a decent continuous operating time. REP :beer:

As for your "camera's rubbish" excuse, well it's getting old, mate I'm thinking this is you 3~4th review sans photographs. Here we are with our tongues hanging out trying to imagine 90mW of 473nm goodness and not an image in sight... :cryyy:

For $250 you can get yourself a decent camera as well as a table-top tripod... and the good news is you can use it for more than just taking pics of your beautiful lasers... I recommend one that lets you go fully manual when you want, but operated on auto when you don't... like the Canon A-series (I have the A630 for everyday use). The A590, if still available, would fit the bill and not set you back very much

Last but not least, good of you to mention Glenn & your positive experience with him :beer:

Don't Laze Me Bro said:

Ive seen 300mW from a forum member!

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..but not HANDHELD a different thing.....

Thats incredible performance for a handheld

Traveller said:

Thanks for pushing the unit - after all, it's a PGL-III-C host and one would expect a decent continuous operating time. REP :beer:

As for your "camera's rubbish" excuse, well it's getting old, mate I'm thinking this is you 3~4th review sans photographs. Here we are with our tongues hanging out trying to imagine 90mW of 473nm goodness and not an image in sight... :cryyy:

For $250 you can get yourself a decent camera as well as a table-top tripod... and the good news is you can use it for more than just taking pics of your beautiful lasers... I recommend one that lets you go fully manual when you want, but operated on auto when you don't... like the Canon A-series (I have the A630 for everyday use). The A590, if still available, would fit the bill and not set you back very much

Last but not least, good of you to mention Glenn & your positive experience with him :beer:

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The trouble with beamshots is that they can look wonderful (and take great skill to photograph well), they are not standardised or objective because so much depends on the exposure and (in particular) the degree of moisture and dust in the atmosphere. With a smoke machine even a 1mw blue beam will look impressive. Conversely a 100mw beam on a dry clear night will be barely visible. That's why instead I have spent quite a lot of money on getting my laserbee perfectly calibrated so that I can post a graph of the output. It is totally objective. Still, I will see what I can do. I just tried taking a picture of the beam in my office, but the atmopshere is very dry and the beam is barely visible to the naked eye, let alone the camera.

davidgdg said:

...they are not standardised or objective because so much depends on the exposure and (in particular) the degree of moisture and dust in the atmosphere...

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Yes, you're quite right, which is why I usually take beam shots of several lasers, each rated (by my own LPM) and documented so that the readers have a "relative" visual comparison...


And you're also right about the power graph being much more important :beer:

Thanks Traveller. That's a nice idea. I might try lining up a set of beams for comparison. However, I suspect that the response curve of the eye is different from the response curve of a camera CCD. Anyway, I'll see what I can do. Shame I lost my old Pentax ME. That would have been perfect for the job!

I haven't yet managed to photograph a beamshot, but this might be of interest. It shows the 473 spot side by side with a green spot. The green is putting out about 90mw (rated 50mw) and I estimate the 473 was putting out about the same (it had been running for about a minute). The photo shows the 473 as almost as bright, but in real life the green is definitely brighter. Still, quite impressive.

I know you all want to see what a >90 mW blue 473nm laser looks like, and I did take a couple of pics, before shipping the laser to davidgdg, so here are a couple of shots:

BTW, there was a little fog used to get these shots.