WARNLaser 30mW Review by Daedal

Following is the review of the WARNLaser 30mW green laser pointer. The pointer was sent by WARN to display their product and to have it reviewed.





Packaging:

The laser came in a case similar to the DX lasers and in much the same packaging.


Large | Small

Once opened, the package has the laser pointer case, which is the exact same one used for the NewWish lasers.


Large | Small

Please note that since EMS shipping was generously used by WARNLaser, the batteries had to be removed to avoid the package being confiscated by customs.


Large | Small

In the process of shipping, the case managed to sustain a nice hit that rendered the top half broken. I am still pleased with the quality and build of this case as I have had my share of experience with shipping lasers to and from China, and this case is very sturdy and very reliable. The fact that it has actually sustained such damage tells me that the case was brutally crushed at the bottom of the freight shipment, or has taken quite the hit.

The damage is visible in the photo below...


Large | Small





The LASER:

The laser itself is very similar to the one sold by novophone on eBay as a LeadLight replica. I had my brush ups with novophone and these lasers and they are in fact excellent lasers.


Large | Small

My first impression when I saw the laser was that it was not that impressive. It's quite a bit lighter than what I'm used to in a laser pointer. The overall design is very well made. The ends are tight and clean, with the exception of a small blemish near the battery end of the laser.


Large | Small

The "QC Passed" sticker is slightly peeled off on the front of the laser, and that is a very similar experience as was the case with the novophone laser.


Large | Small

The aperture cap can be unscrewed easily to reveal the module and lens, which is not focusable and cannot be adjusted in any way.


Large | Small

The button is not very impressive. It's flimsy and makes a rattling noise constantly. It will rotate in its place and will also wobble back and forth very noticeably. It doesn't feel like it's something that would last long.


Large | Small

The laser uses 2 x AAA batteries and are inserted positive side facing away from the lasing aperture.


Large | Small

It is daylight right now and thus beam shots, shots of the laser in action and the such will be added later this evening.

The laser uses 280mA of power and is very steady with no power fluctuations and the beam is nice and uniform. There was no mode hopping or speckle all around the laser. The beam is a nice TEM00. I did notice that the beam has a natural focus point about a foot away from the aperture and have tried to light a black match at that spot but was unable to do so. The beam continues to expand rather quickly after that point, which entitles a very bad divergence.

Power measurements will follow very soon as I do not have a laser power meter handy at the moment.





IR SAFETY:

WARNING!! This laser is VERY bad with IR filtering and I o not believe any form of IR filtering is present!

Following are some shots through the IR-cam. This is also the camera that sustained massive damage by being subjected to a direct laser hit. ;D

As stated above, this laser has no IR filtering AT ALL!!!

This is a shot of the WARNLaser at close range on a matte surface:

Full Size

This is a shot of the WARNLaser at far range on a matte surface:

Full Size

This is a shot of a leadlight at close range on a matte surface:

Full Size

This is a shot of a leadlight at far range on a matte surface:

Full Size

This is a shot of the WARNLaser at close range with added IR filter:

Full Size

This is a shot of the WARNLaser at far range with the added IR filter:

Full Size

This is a shot of the aperture of the WARNLaser with the laser on:

Full Size

This is a shot of the aperture of the leadlight with the laser on:

Full Size

This is a shot of the aperture of the NOVA X-85 with the laser on:

Full Size

This is a shot of the aperture of the WARNLaser with the laser on with added IR filter:

Full Size






Conclusion and Final Thoughts:


Pro:

• Light-weight laser.
• Does not heat up at all given the output.
• The laser is well made with a very nice grip and a very sleek design.
• The finishing on the laser is well done and looks to be a long lasting finish.
• Customer service based on my experience is very robust and friendly.

Con:

• IR OUTPUT IS HORRIBLE!
• The button is easily depressed and could cause accidental eye injury very easily.
• The focus of the laser is not geared towards the far field.
• The focus is not variable.
• IR OUTPUT IS HORRIBLE!

As is the case with many other laser pointers in this price range, whether available on eBay or on a different website, IR filtering is an issue. As shown above, this laser is outputting a massive amount of IR through the aperture and it is actually somewhat focused down the beam path! This is very bad and extremely harmful for the uninformed.

Given the price of this laser ($79.99) and given the quality of the item, I'd be interested to see what the higher power units have to offer... but only for curiosity as to what passes as 250mW output.

This laser is pretty bright. The beam is quite visible and very solid. The burning potential is not quite that high especially with a laser of this power.

Overall, I think WARNLaser has some very important steps that need to be taken prior to being considered a viable and worth-while solution for cheap lasers.

--DDL

This is an update-reserved post.

--DDL

Please note that in the shot where the laser seems like it's focused INTO the camera that it in fact is almost at a 45 degree angle AWAY from the lens!!!

--DDL

Although the review is decent - an the photography very good, I do not 100% agree with simply using IR photography as a means of measurement when it comes to IR. In order to properly measure IR emissions, you MUST have a power meter, and an IR filter of known transmission capabilities. Tests such as done above are not 100% indicitive of horrid IR emissions ! The New-wish lasers were tested like above for quite a long period of time, and assumed to be IR fountains - when in fact it was proven that the majority of them are not like that at all. The best, proven method to test for IR leakage (or spewage) is to test the output of the laser on a power meter at a set distance, then add in the filter to teh beam - again at the same distance, and then compare the measurements. If the IR filter has a 95% transmission rate for 532nm light - then you can expect a well filtered laser to only drop in power by 5-6% - maybe as much as 7% !

G !

SenKat, I agree... I am using a 90% transmittance filter... and just for the sake of this review will go ahead an buy a better IR filter right now. I hope to have that data up very soon and to help people make a better informed decision about their laser purchases.

--DDL

Thanks for the great review Daedal.

This laser is VERY CLEARLY a Spymode-style laser. Warnlaser is hereby blacklisted as far as I'm concerned. It was a good show of theirs to send a laser for testing, but whether they know it or not (they're obviously just resellers), the lasers they are selling are THE ORIGINAL CRAP LASER (aka. eBayser to those who knew RoadRunner), and there's more proof about this than any other model out there. Like the Spymode ones, I would expect a quick peak on the >100mW versions, followed by perhaps a few tens of mW sustained output, coupled with the fact its a very low-quality unit. "'nuff said"?

I can tell the DX 30mw True is a much better deal. If I had my choice for something budget minded I would go with DX. Of course if I had the money.....dreaming..

Daedal - can I sugest a swift shipment to Pseudo for power testing ? JUST asking

G !

I tend to agree with Senkat. Tests need to be done with a filter and good meter to get accurate results. Photos can have many variables associated with them that make side by side comparisions difficult unless they are very well controlled.
Exposure, f-stop, ISO speed, exact distance to the laser and zoom amount if one is used as well as agle between the lens the object and whether or not ambient room lighting is the same for all images.

The photo are nice though and thanks for getting this review started.
Where are you located DDL? Maybe you could send it to Pseudo for a day or two so he could test it on his meters and filters, would that be possible?

I was wondering, on the package, what was the name of the sender? Was it an individual or did it have a company name?

I was also going to make one comment.
Did they tell you that the batteries had to be removed to avoid customs confiscating it?
This is not true at all, if the package gets opened it gets opened batteries or no batteries. It was just done to save them the cost of the batteries and added shipping costs if the weight increased up to the next pound level.

It's kind of funny as I read that techlaser is doing the same thing but with the 18650 rechargeable lithium cells and charger. There models don't come with the cells or charger and they state the same customs reasons, but they will sell them seperately and ship them to you. I know this part of my comment is off-topic, but I think techlasers is having a hard time getting 18650 high capacity cells.
I say this because they are in short supply and will be for some time. All the major customers are on allocation for the high capacity 18650's.
The reason being is that last summer there were recalls by a couple laptop computer makers for defective 18650 cells used in their batteries. It seems that to cut corners they were shopping around and buying from cheaper sources. Those sources ended up supplying them with counterfeit cells in most cases. The real manufacturers with tested and proven prodcuts had to then jump in and supply all these.
Now there's an additional drain, Hybrid cars with batteries. The large cells in many of these cars are made up of hundress of 18650 cells.

This shortage also increased the price of the cells. My battery distributor increased their prices 8% as of July 1st. When I found this out in late May, I asked my source to try and set 400 aside for me as I would need more by September. It's now the 8th of Sept. and I just now stopped sweating bullets; however to get my order filled I had to buy 1,000 of them at one time. At least they are on the way, I got the tracking number yesterday on them. btw, I go through an official LG distributor that LG pointed me to here in the USA, so I know mine are the real deal.

Sorry about the off-topic spew at the end here, but someone might be interested in this kind of thing.

ps. Thanks again DDL, I do trust if you visually notice and increase in IR or lots of IR leakage in this laser, then it probably exists. You know cause you know your IR camera and are seeing this visually so to speak or maybe 1st hand is a better description.

Jack

Thank you all.

I will send the laser over to Pseudo unless I find a better way of testing the laser here

--DDL

Daedal said:

Thank you all.

I will send the laser over to Pseudo unless I find a better way of testing the laser here

--DDL

Click to expand...

Well, I'll test it if you need, but it'd be futile with a 30mW. There's no reason they can't make a decent 30mW. I, among many others, have already tested 150mW versions of this type of laser though. The results revealed a heavily oversaturated crystal and no IR filter (symptoms included high IR output, quick peak that rapidly dropped off, etc). You can see the original post on LC stickied in the saftey section unless its been deleted (titled something like "Why eBay lasers suck").



I have some old vids from that actually, click to watch:

Viewing the IR:


Proof of overexaggerated output:



Check out the vids. You can see the lasers are the exact same except warnlaser is buying the silver color instead of the black/gold. You can find both on eBay.

So there's my warning about Warnlaser. Please don't turn this into another DL situation.

Hey DDL thanks for putting your hand up and taking the time in to do the review for us all. In my mind I know all I need to know about these particular Lasers to steer clear of them but out of curiosity I would like to see some power readings if possible.

to:bootleg2go
china customer is strict ,so i can't carry any batteries.
even if add batteries'weight ,the shipping costs are same price ,and you know ,in china good batteries still cheaper.Maybe [ch65509]2.0 RMB equal only $0.3 dollar.

toseudonomen137
To this day, i don't know what reasons you always defame warnlaser.ok,warnlaser isn't a best company,a unsatisfied product.But my colleage and me will try our best.
so no need sympathize,you are free with man,i think,if we are wrong,you can pm to me.I shouldn't cheat forum's friends at all in order to buy our laser pointer ,nothing ,someone like this,you try buying with paypal.when you get laser pointer from warnlaser,you have found the pointer is fake,he may cancel the payment by paypal ,return his money.
i think you have some opinion to me,doesn't matter,you pm to me, welcome to advice.and tell me ,we should do what in the future.we will do.

finally,i think your testing result for 30mW have released .


to Daedal
Thanks for tesing laser poiinter.i will told my engineer to advance the product(e.g button,...)thanks.i need the defect to improve ,but alway perform who right,who is cheat,i don't care.

warnlaser said:

toseudonomen137
To this day, i don't know what reasons you always defame warnlaser.ok,warnlaser isn't a best company,a unsatisfied product.But my colleage and me will try our best.
so no need sympathize,you are free with man,i think,if we are wrong,you can pm to me.I shouldn't cheat forum's friends at all  in order to buy our laser pointer ,nothing ,someone like this,you try buying with paypal.when you get laser pointer from warnlaser,you have found the pointer is fake,he may cancel the payment by paypal ,return his money.
i think you have some opinion to me,doesn't matter,you pm to me, welcome to advice.and tell me ,we should do what in the future.we will do.

Click to expand...

How about you go read my post then? I clearly outlined why I dislike your company. I got nothing against you - I figure you're just being, in turn, scammed by whoever you're buying the lasers from.

The problem with paypal chargebacks is:
A. Paypal are pretty much frauds too, they only have chargebacks for when they're scared you'll chargeback them on your CC. Otherwise they don't give a damn about you.
B. Most customers cannot test if your laser is in spec. Even Daedal can't, and he did an excellent job with the review. He did however, prove you were lying about the IR filter though.

Warnlaser has proven a record of lies, and has 99.9999% proven they sell a product that is famous for being total crap and BS. I hate to be rude about it, but what more do you need to know?

Pseudonomen's mugshot.

Jase.

Pseudo... you're being a bit harsh and bashful... regardless of what the person sells, he is being very polite and trying to help himself and his company in the process. You really think he would say all of that and take on himself the trouble of sending a laser for review if he knew what IR was? He's a business man, not a scientist! Not everyone who starts a company has full knowledge of their product. They should, but they don't always do.

If you run a stock of 1000 watches at $0.50 a pop... and they look like they can go on eBay for $5 a pop. Would pass up $4500 because you "don't know about your product"? I personally would charge it up to my CC and then take my time selling them at whatever is may be. If I break even, I now have 1000 positive feedback. If I sell them at $1 each, I made $500... etc. And on the other side, if you're buying a Rolex for $5 shipped... you would take it on you to be smart enough to know it's not a Rolex.

Take your local "gadget" or "surplus" store for example. They have things they wouldn't even be able to give a name!

This is all there is to it honestly. This guy has a stock and he has what he was given and is basing it all on what he was told. You can get angry at BFG for being like this because that other one knew what he was selling and was still selling underpowered crap. This here is just a mediator.

Educating someone shouldn't happen with a stick and whip... you can do it by talking.

--DDL