Gabe
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Jetlasers Pl-E Pro, 300mW at 532nm! More aluminium, more better!
Welcome to my review of the Jetlasers PL-E pro! I will try to explore as many factors as possible, so if I miss something, don't hesitate to let me know
Part 1: Shipping
My order was placed on the 2nd of August. Order was promptly accepted, and stayed in that state for seven days until it shipped out from their warehouse. It felt like the longest week of my life. It turns out, the reason for this relatively short wait was a hurricane and severely inclement weather in their area
. By no means their fault, but they deeply apologized for the wait and after that, my package flew at light speed to my front door. Here is the log:
As you can see, it went from Hong Kong to Ohio, left Ohio and made it to Alberta in one day. Holy frig! The next day it made it to my house, but I had just left for a week long camping trip. Timing's a bítch. So eight days from Hong Kong to Canada, really good. It would've been even faster if conditions were right.
Part 2: Packaging
It arrived in a dhl yellow shipping bag. Nothing special.
Idk what mini flashlight is this big, but I'll take their word for it. They also seem to like first person shooters:
Inside the bag is this beat up, smushed cardboard box:
Says "Lasers n shít" in Mandarin. Jk it just says "Canada". Box is 10" by 8" by 5.5" tall. Or 25 by 18 by 14 cm tall for you people who use the real measurement units.
Slight movement when I shake the box, but it sounds well padded. Open up the box and we find at first look:
Some pink foam and what I assume is anti-static bags. Spread it all out:
We got a battery charger and a black plastic case. Case is 9" by 6", or 23cm by 16cm.
Open up the case and we find:
Three yellow paper packages. What could they all be..?
In 1 we find a tailcap, a lens cloth, and a set of keys. In 2 we find the main laser body, this is the heavy part. 3 has the battery compartment, a battery condom for 18650 batteries, and a warranty guide. This part of the warranty exceptions made me laugh:
Everything was in an anti-static bag, and the main laser bit was also wrapped in more bubble wrap. Ain't no way anything is gonna get damaged during shipping.
Part 3: Firin 'Er Up!
Lighting this bad boy up is simple. All's you gotta do is screw the battery compartment onto the important bit, slide the battery condom in if you're using 18650s, or don't if you're using 26650s. Then you put the battery in negative end first, and screw the tailcap on. Then you insert the key into the back and turn it, and watch those lovely indicator lights blink into existence. Make sure the focus adaptor is focused right, and press that button! Wait, no... Ah that's right. Don't forget to unscrew that aperture cap first. Then you select which button you want, momentary or constant on/off, point n shoot! I think that means it's picture time!
Part 4: The Laser in All Her Glory
Oh boy, where do I begin. This laser is a beast. I mean just lookit it! Banana fer scale!
Machining is pretty good, there are some sharp edges on the bezel and such that cut my fingers while unscrewing the aperture cap, this is a common problem. I sanded it down so my baby soft hands don't get injured no more
Heck, even the dust cap is well machined and knurled! There is a gap where the light from the indicators is visible, slight annoyance but it's tolerable:
Everything is metal, and that makes it skookum as heyul. By all means skookumer than a cheap mass produced laser, and even skookumer than the tripod I'm using with it, it feels out of place. So solid, in fact, when I accidentally dropped the tailcap over my hardwood table, it dented it! Hey, speakin of tripods, here's the side opposite side to the buttons:
The left hole is for a tripod mount. I wish this was a little deeper, this makes it sit weird on my tripod and sometimes it spins, as its top heavy. No big deal, I can just saw/file my tripod threads shorter. The middle is for AC power, which is an awesome feature to have if you're charging your batteries or if you just don't feel like using them. However, an adaptor doesn't come with it! So what do, eh? Well, I recognize it takes the standard adaptor plug, that's a start. I go to the product page and I see it runs off 5V. Bingo bungo, I need a 5V wall adaptor. I have a box of cords n stuff, figure I'll get two birds stoned with one bush and thin out the collection. But, I find zilch. When I think I'm SOL, I find a plug with a USB end on it, it's a start. Now mama didn't raise no fool, I gotta make myself a solution. So I think to myself, what wall plug takes a USB... A phone charger! And if I remember correctly, they output 5V right? So I walks on down to the kitchen, grabs me a cool drink and I find one of them little cube plug ins for charging iPhones. I try it, but it seems like it's just barely not enough jooce to get er going, the lights flicker on for a second and fade out each time I unplug it and plug it back in. I do some googling and find out those iPhone chargers output 1 amp. That ain't gonna cut it. But howdy hey, an iPad charger outputs 5.1V and 2.1 Amps, what a deal. I have one of those, so I plug it all in and Robert's your mothers brother, 532nm coherent light! The plug doesn't fit solidly in the port, but it does as it do and it does fine. The 18650 battery seems to run it fine, but it looks like it runs out of jooce pretty quickly, that's what I get for using el cheapo ultra crap batteries. Soon I'll order some real 26650s, get maximum bang for my batt. Anyways, I'm actually not sure what that last port is for? Maybe for a different type of plug in, not sure. If someone could do me a solid and inform me, that'd be great.
Here's the front button side:
We got three red indicator lights to let us know something's burning at the other end of the beam. The smaller button is a momentary switch, and I see they've changed it from rubber to metal, which I'm glad for. I'm happy they put both momentary and constant on switches on, it's a feature I didn't think I wanted but did. I did briefly have some issues with the momentary switch, for a short bit it kept on getting stuck down in the in position, staying down and not clicking when I press it again. This went away, and I hope it doesn't recur. Finally there's the constant on/off side clicky, also made of metal and feels quite solid, as does the momentary. When you press down on the momentary, blue LEDs light up alongside the red, looks like this:
And when the clicky is on, very faint green LEDs turn on:
Not sure of the purpose behind these, but it's neat.
The internal focusing mechanism is a dream, smooth like buddah to turn:
The closest it'll focus to is about 7 inches (18 cm) away. I'm also very grateful they marked where infinity is, saves me a lot of time.
Now, I have another 300+mW laser. But this one absolutely destroys it in a burning competition, thanks to its much thinner beam diameter. It doesn't even need to be focused to burn any dark plastic, leather, foam, wood, you name it near instantly! And when it is focused, oh boy she's a scorcher. With a little time it melted clean through this Sharpie cap:
This is a bright laser, as you've seen from the beam shots. Safety m'glarses are required when doing close up work, and maybe even just from pointing it around your parents basement! Safety squints ain't gonna cut it this time. But oh man the beam is a thing to admire, paired with the cool, smooth aluminum in your hand(s) it's a wet dream, but before you wake up. Sure to attract all the ladies within a 5 mile radius. All the threads are very smooth and clean, and came lubed for maximum pleasure.
Other Stuff
Customer service: Jetlasers is known for their great customer service, and their reputation stands. Gray helped answer all of my stupid questions, stayed with me throughout the whole process, responded in a super timely fashion, and gave me a coupon code to ease the wallet woes. What a guy, cheers to Gray :beer:
Technical specs: I'll try to do as many as I can.
Beam diameter at aperture: 1.325 mm. They claim 1.3 mm. Accuracy is on point.
Divergence: 2mRad. They claim around 2mRad. As claimed, alright.
Host size: 11 7/16 inches long by 1 9/16 inches thick (29 cm long by 4 cm thick). Almost a solid footlong.
Current draw: Seems to draw @ 1.53 Amps. So it'll suck those cheap 18650 _____-fire batteries dry pretty quick fer sure.
Operating modes: I don't know enough about the modes to name it, but it seems to hop every 5 or so seconds before settling into TEM00. Sometimes it's two dots, other times it's one, sometimes a crescent around a dot, sometimes it's thinner and sometimes it's wider. Not very noticeable at all from the operating end, or while burning. Noticed it once while pointing down the street, the dot hopped from small to bigger, to small again.
Output power: so I did not get an output graph from Gray, but that's fine cause it was an extra request and by no means did they have to complete it. I guess we will have to wait until the day I buy an LPM
. Something tells me this laser isn't underspec Price/Was It Worth: so, I ordered the laser with everything plain at 300mW, price came out to be $320 after shipping and discounts. However, that's $320 AMERICAN. Because our Canadian pesos are in the shítter, that slapped on an extra $100 for me, making the total $420. Heheh. Blaze it. Was this laser worth $420? In my opinion, so far, yes. Absolutely. It's got more features than I could dream of, wonderfully machined, awe inspiring beam, it's totally worth imho even with those minor flaws.
Conclusion
All in all, I give Jetlasers and their product, the PL-E Pro 300mW 532nm laser, a 97% grade. Would recommend, and I surely will be buying from em again. I've been eyeballing that 515nm Ti B....
Any questions, comments, etc., leave em down below! Thanks fer readin.
-Gabe
p.s. I named it the kush-saber because it looks like a light-saber, is green, cost $420, and smokes nearly everything
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