This is a mini-review of the triAngle Lights 150mw Labbie sold on eBay for USD$105.95. This laser was originally reviewed by ElektroFreak in this thread. Thanks to EF I now have one also!

I found the seller very helpful, he answered my query regarding Australian customs and the unit arrived 5 days later passing straight through customs without them even opening the package. The box was marked "LASER MODULE Green 150mW" very clearly. As this is not a portable hand held laser, there are no customs restrictions.

The box was well packed, having a second box inside the first. The laser was wrapped in a lot of bubble wrap and included the spec sheet that is also posted on the eBay add. They fitted an Australian 3-pin mains plug with earth, I checked the power supply BEFORE powering it up to ensure the ground was wired and secure in line with Australian wiring rules.

The power supply includes a small 40mm fan that does make a moderate amount of noise but not too loud. (I won't hear it over Pink Floyd at 105dB anyways!). The PSU includes the TEC control loop and driver, plus the laser driver. A multicore cable connects the PSU and Laser head, this is hard wired with no connectors. Obviously they have kept the costs down, and this is fine for me. There may be just enough room to retrofit a D9 connector the the power supply case or even inline on the cable.

The Laser head is quite compact but tidy, looks more professional than the PSU thats for sure. A small aperture for the beam output is sans glass or filter, as others have posted in the original thread you may want to retrofit an IR filter. Looking the the module inside, a large threaded barrel holds the glass collimating lens and this may be adjusted as required using a two pronged tool. The lens is glued to the threaded adapter with white goop. I may choose to defocus mine a little, I'll explain why.

Beam quality is good! Very good! TEM00 straight up and thus far has maintained TEM00 for over 2 hours CW. Tight, really tight. I measured ~4mm diameter at 5M. I see no fluctuations at all which is pleasantly surprising. Yours may differ however, I can not guarantee they are all like this!

This laser burns through cardboard... Looking at the burn marks from just 10 seconds on cardboard @ 1M, the burn marks are very small. Seriously small. At 5 meters, the beam stings your hand. I may choose to defocus this tonight once I see it running in my ghetto-scanner. I have the felling this may be dangerous with such a tight beam.

Running for 2 hours CW in an 18c ambient room, the case temperature of the head is only 21c.

I have no way of measuring output so I can only guess. It is much brighter than my 100mW DPPS, so it at least 150mW as advertised. Some others have reported 300mW+ with IR, other ~200mW without IR.

Overall I am very happy with this laser.

Photos, everyone likes photos. I'll post the rest of the photos in another post.

Here are the rest of the photos.

looks like a nice laser, i may have to buy one

Ooooo multiturn pots to twiddle with

Yes, I should have added, the one marked TEC MODE adjusts temperature (I assume). The other is pump diode current.

I am not game to tweak either considering the performance is A.OK.

I fitted this labby to my home made ghetto scanner (Arduino/200 step steppers @ 1/16th stepping with hard drive platter mirrors lol) and took a few pics for you enjoyment or not. I have a set of DT30s on the way, don't worry!

And a few more pics.

Nice Review, Nice Pics!! Can't wait to see how she does with your DTs..

Nice Review of your 532nm Labby... As I posted
on PL... I bought the same ones..
I have one doing 360mW and the other doing 165mW...
And they are very stable once they come to a temperature
equilibrium...

Jerry

Do you have a multimeter? You could measure the voltage across the resistor that is in series with the pump diode (in the PSU). It would be interesting to compare pump currents between your 2 units and mine... I=V/R. Simple ohms law.

I'll email the supplier and ask for any service/setup procedures they have, although it will most likely not be in English!

Just got mine today. Very nice!
I'm going to redo the power entry and strain-relief the in & out of the PSU.
Scary good so far!

Thanks for the teardown!
Mu

My Little Safety Ground

Unretouched green awsomeness from my TriAngle150.

The irony, it kills!

Got mine today and it jumps around between 175mw for the first minute or two and then goes to 260mW for the remainder of the test. I posted in ElektroFreak's thread but if anyone has any input please let me know.

LINK PICTURES AND LPM TEST.

hi everyone,

this is Alan, and i am the sales of triAngle Lights on ebay. just to say hello to you all, and wish to thank dnar for this review.

Alan

Some additional tech tidbits -



Voltage Reference - Shunt Voltage Reference - TL431 - TI.com

See page 31, Figure 28.

Hi Alan,

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for supplying this great little lab laser, everyone that has ordered one appears very happy with this great deal.

Say, do your techs have laser power meter results for these and other units? They appear to produce more power than rated, I am interested to see the actual measured results for other models. I am looking at getting analog modulation also.

Thanks,

Wayne.

hi Wayne, we better not claim anything other than what we advertised. all products are tested to at least satisfy the output advertised before they are shipped. our other lasers are manufactured with the same standard as the 150mw laser. we as seller are not in the position to say anything other than that, i hope one of our buyers for the other lasers may put a review soon. i hope you can understand. cheers and have a great weekend ahead!

i will include a new section of technical details in the manual, this section shows the expected performance in working conditions. i will need help from this forum because ironically, none of our techs read english, and i don't know the equivalent terms in english for our chinese version manual.....


Alan

If the manual is in Mandarin, my friend is fluent in English and Mandarin, both written and spoken. If you need any help let me know. Welcome to LPF Alan! Best regards. Thanks for the review Dnar!

Hi millirad

thank you very much for your offer to help. I just got a buyer who are so helpful that he offers to rewrite our manuals. we should rollout a much better and informative manual soon.

thank you again!
Alan

Ah, I see you've got an account on these forums. Welcome!

I also suggest you sign up at PhotonLexicon- Photonlexicon.com

The guys over there work exclusively with lab-style lasers in laser projectors- you'll get quite a few takers over there.

Cheers,

I got my triAngle Lights 150mw Labbie on Friday.

Without IR Filter: 260mW
With IR Flilter: 160mW