aXit
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INTRO:
This is a the JetLasers 50mW Ti Lite A pointer. From the thread here. This was received as a review sample, and a soon to be discontinued model. They say the laser did not meet their expectations, and that many improvements were made. More will be learnt about this in the future. Picture quality isn't amazing, I had to size them down a lot to upload them, and it's probably going to chew through my bandwidth as it is, they're good enough though. Anyway, on to the review.
OVERVIEW:
Manufacturer: JetLasers
Host: Ti Lite A
Wavelength: 532nm
Power: 50mW Rated (~90mW stable, peaks of 98mW)
Mode: Perfect TEM00 (pics below)
Beam diameter at aperture: ~1.5mm.
Measured divergence: 1.1 mRad (focusable)
Battery: 1x CR123A or 16340 (does not fit protected cells)
Price: $150USD
PACKAGING AND DELIVERY:
The laser was sent to me via DHL express. Arrived overnight from Hong Kong. Quite impressive.
Once out of the box that was stuffed with bubblewrap and foam, two gift boxes:
They seem a bit small.
Much smaller than I thought it would be.
And everything received.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Holy s*** it's beautiful. Excuse my profanities.
It's much smaller than I thought it would be, 114mm long 22mm diameter.
But it's heavy, 130g without the battery.
It doesn't look like your normal aluminium host, looks more of a gun metal colour, because it actually is made of titanium. While titanium isn't the best conductor of heat, it looks simply amazing, and holds it's polish brilliantly.
THE HOST:
The part you've all been waiting for, everyone has seen a green laser before, but not one in a host like this:
The power symbol is laser etched on.
FEATURES AND OPERATION:
JetLasers state that it is waterproof, and I believe them, all threads have o-rings, even the focus ring feels like it is surrounded by rubber, I've had it underwater for about half an hour at one point, no adverse effects. Water easily flicks out of the focusing ring, no little droplets of water get stuck on the lens so the beam quality is back to perfect as soon as it's out of the water. I'm not sure if this is a property of sapphire glass, as the final objective is made of it.
As you can see, o-rings, and the wonderful square threads. I'll get back to that in a second. The battery type and polarity is laser etched on, nice touch.
It is also said to be shockproof, but there's only one way to test that.
It's a laminated wood desk, not particularly soft. I've rolled it down stairs, and dropped it onto carpet from about 1.5m. Still nothing changed.
The laser is focusable, at the furthest extension, the focal point is about 5cm away from the aperture. When focusing to infinity, the best possible divergence is attained at about a quarter turn out from the focus ring screwed all the way down, this is good as it means that the best divergence is not being limited by the ring hitting the host. I will say, the focusing ring is quite stiff though, and difficult to lubricate.
The laser operates in a unique way, the button on the back is actually a momentary button, press to emit light, release to stop. But the laser can be turned on constantly by screwing in the tailcap all the way. This is where the square threads come in, the great square threads are useful, this area of high use; really nice smooth threads, and very easy to get the tailcap on.
I was a bit rough with the focus ring at first, and actually broke it off. The titanium focus ring is just epoxied on the the top of the brass objective holder, and I got to see the sapphire lens when it was off. The glass is a deep black in colour, doesn't look the same as normal glass. It is surrounded by white silicon, which water proofs it. The lens is the final optic in the output path, and the outer side of it is curved, this means to get a straight beam underwater, the focus ring has to be screwed out slightly. I secured the ring back on with epoxy, and pushed in the retaining pin, it won't fall off again.
Those marks are not visible in person.
The laser is case positive, but has spring contacts at both ends.
As you can see, fingerprint magnet.
BEAMSHOTS:
Here are a few beamshots I did, none with smoke, just dust in the air and a long exposure. Not amazing, but everyone has seen green beams before.
This one is the dot on a tree about 30m away.
PERFORMANCE:
Beam specs. 1.5mm aperture, 1.1mRad divergence when focused to infinity.
Perfect TEM00:
Defocused on a wall.
Viewing the scatter, the ring around my finger is the round beam itself, as you can see, there is practically no scatter at all. Keep in mind as well, this was done after being underwater multiple times, without cleaning the lens.
The all important power tests. Tests were done starting from ambient, about 22°C. Averaging 90mW, peaking at 98mW, quite nice for a 50mW laser. Tests were over 5 minutes.
The output had no jitter or movement, despite the 10 second intervals. A very stable laser.
Thermal test. Measure with my temperature probe on a fluke 87V, again, 5 minutes.
About 2°C per minute. The heat is concentrated on the ribbed section of the host.
The laser takes a single CR123A or 16340. I've tried batteries all the way from 3V primaries, LiFePO4 cells (~3.3V) and the normal LiCoO2 cells (3.7V). No power change depending on cell. Laser draws ~480mA.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, I'm very very pleased with the laser, definitely the one I'll go to pick up when I want to show them off. Performed well past expectations, and I've decided to ignore the focusing ring fault. It's stronger than it was now anyway.
Appearance: 10/10 - Amazing looking, polished very well, highly resistant to scratching
Build Quality: 8/10 - Threads perfect, no machining marks, focusing ring is stiff, focusing ring fell off
Portability: 8/10 - Sure, it's not a keychain, but it'll easily fit in any pocket
Performance: 9/10 - Very stable, 80-100% overspec
"coolness": 10/10 - Unique host, shiny, amazing appearance overall
Overall rating: 9/10 - Not an average, just my opinion
Well, that's it then, hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask any questions. I can email you a higher resolution picture if you want.
Thanks,
aXit
This is a the JetLasers 50mW Ti Lite A pointer. From the thread here. This was received as a review sample, and a soon to be discontinued model. They say the laser did not meet their expectations, and that many improvements were made. More will be learnt about this in the future. Picture quality isn't amazing, I had to size them down a lot to upload them, and it's probably going to chew through my bandwidth as it is, they're good enough though. Anyway, on to the review.
OVERVIEW:
Manufacturer: JetLasers
Host: Ti Lite A
Wavelength: 532nm
Power: 50mW Rated (~90mW stable, peaks of 98mW)
Mode: Perfect TEM00 (pics below)
Beam diameter at aperture: ~1.5mm.
Measured divergence: 1.1 mRad (focusable)
Battery: 1x CR123A or 16340 (does not fit protected cells)
Price: $150USD
PACKAGING AND DELIVERY:
The laser was sent to me via DHL express. Arrived overnight from Hong Kong. Quite impressive.
Once out of the box that was stuffed with bubblewrap and foam, two gift boxes:
They seem a bit small.
Much smaller than I thought it would be.
And everything received.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Holy s*** it's beautiful. Excuse my profanities.
It's much smaller than I thought it would be, 114mm long 22mm diameter.
But it's heavy, 130g without the battery.
It doesn't look like your normal aluminium host, looks more of a gun metal colour, because it actually is made of titanium. While titanium isn't the best conductor of heat, it looks simply amazing, and holds it's polish brilliantly.
THE HOST:
The part you've all been waiting for, everyone has seen a green laser before, but not one in a host like this:
The power symbol is laser etched on.
FEATURES AND OPERATION:
JetLasers state that it is waterproof, and I believe them, all threads have o-rings, even the focus ring feels like it is surrounded by rubber, I've had it underwater for about half an hour at one point, no adverse effects. Water easily flicks out of the focusing ring, no little droplets of water get stuck on the lens so the beam quality is back to perfect as soon as it's out of the water. I'm not sure if this is a property of sapphire glass, as the final objective is made of it.
As you can see, o-rings, and the wonderful square threads. I'll get back to that in a second. The battery type and polarity is laser etched on, nice touch.
It is also said to be shockproof, but there's only one way to test that.
It's a laminated wood desk, not particularly soft. I've rolled it down stairs, and dropped it onto carpet from about 1.5m. Still nothing changed.
The laser is focusable, at the furthest extension, the focal point is about 5cm away from the aperture. When focusing to infinity, the best possible divergence is attained at about a quarter turn out from the focus ring screwed all the way down, this is good as it means that the best divergence is not being limited by the ring hitting the host. I will say, the focusing ring is quite stiff though, and difficult to lubricate.
The laser operates in a unique way, the button on the back is actually a momentary button, press to emit light, release to stop. But the laser can be turned on constantly by screwing in the tailcap all the way. This is where the square threads come in, the great square threads are useful, this area of high use; really nice smooth threads, and very easy to get the tailcap on.
I was a bit rough with the focus ring at first, and actually broke it off. The titanium focus ring is just epoxied on the the top of the brass objective holder, and I got to see the sapphire lens when it was off. The glass is a deep black in colour, doesn't look the same as normal glass. It is surrounded by white silicon, which water proofs it. The lens is the final optic in the output path, and the outer side of it is curved, this means to get a straight beam underwater, the focus ring has to be screwed out slightly. I secured the ring back on with epoxy, and pushed in the retaining pin, it won't fall off again.
Those marks are not visible in person.
The laser is case positive, but has spring contacts at both ends.
As you can see, fingerprint magnet.
BEAMSHOTS:
Here are a few beamshots I did, none with smoke, just dust in the air and a long exposure. Not amazing, but everyone has seen green beams before.
This one is the dot on a tree about 30m away.
PERFORMANCE:
Beam specs. 1.5mm aperture, 1.1mRad divergence when focused to infinity.
Perfect TEM00:
Defocused on a wall.
Viewing the scatter, the ring around my finger is the round beam itself, as you can see, there is practically no scatter at all. Keep in mind as well, this was done after being underwater multiple times, without cleaning the lens.
The all important power tests. Tests were done starting from ambient, about 22°C. Averaging 90mW, peaking at 98mW, quite nice for a 50mW laser. Tests were over 5 minutes.
The output had no jitter or movement, despite the 10 second intervals. A very stable laser.
Thermal test. Measure with my temperature probe on a fluke 87V, again, 5 minutes.
About 2°C per minute. The heat is concentrated on the ribbed section of the host.
The laser takes a single CR123A or 16340. I've tried batteries all the way from 3V primaries, LiFePO4 cells (~3.3V) and the normal LiCoO2 cells (3.7V). No power change depending on cell. Laser draws ~480mA.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, I'm very very pleased with the laser, definitely the one I'll go to pick up when I want to show them off. Performed well past expectations, and I've decided to ignore the focusing ring fault. It's stronger than it was now anyway.
Appearance: 10/10 - Amazing looking, polished very well, highly resistant to scratching
Build Quality: 8/10 - Threads perfect, no machining marks, focusing ring is stiff, focusing ring fell off
Portability: 8/10 - Sure, it's not a keychain, but it'll easily fit in any pocket
Performance: 9/10 - Very stable, 80-100% overspec
"coolness": 10/10 - Unique host, shiny, amazing appearance overall
Overall rating: 9/10 - Not an average, just my opinion
Well, that's it then, hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask any questions. I can email you a higher resolution picture if you want.
Thanks,
aXit
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