Props to Dogs Best Friend (The Bushwhacker)

The lucky one whom DBF sold the Bushwhacker to was me. :wave:

The sale thread is here:
http://laserpointerforums.com/f39/sold-bushwhacker-2w-445nm-no-duty-cycle-73274.html

The transaction was very smooth and DBF was quick with his replies.
I was worried about the customs in South Korea as it might have been confiscated. To combat this, DBF tightly secured the laser in many ways.

When I received the package, I noticed the package itself was very solid. Noting rattled around when shaken. I opened it up:



Inside were very nicely packed components:



I was impressed with the packing of the laser as well. DBF wrapped it with a towel and secured it with zip ties:



Anyway, I was very pleased with DBF's service and want to thank him for that!

Cheers!

(I'll write up a review of it this weekend!)

:thanks:

Re: Props to Dogs Best Friend (Bushwhacker)

Congrats neighbor!

This was the first laser I had my eyes on ever since I joined LPF. Glad to know they got through safely.

What shipping method/speed did you opt for, and how long did you wait, if you don't mind me asking? :beer:

Re: Props to Dogs Best Friend (Bushwhacker)

Thanks!

We used USPS Priority Mail International Parcels to ship it, and it took 8 days.
Despite the fact that it was tracked, the tracking system had a slight delay. For 4-5 days it said it "arrived at sort facility" and I was getting worried, but it was just the tracking being slow. No problems through customs and what not.

Cheers!

i have to give him a big thumbs up too. i bought a nice melle griot beam expander from him and the sale went smooth smooth. packed up very securely. it arrived in perfect condition.

Just saw ryansoh3's "Bushwhacker", and LPM'd it using both a Laserbee and the new Ophir20C from Trevor. I met Ryan at the local Apple retailer here in central Seoul and went to a local Starbucks and ordered him a coffee and we talked a bit.
Ryan is a really decent, smart person and I am happy that he has realized the importance of having a hobby! :beer:
I have to admit the copper modules really make for stability in the output. I'll let Ryan do the honours and give the information about the overall build and the
405G1 lens that this build came with.
I know I have something to say about this!
- Seller looks like they included safety wear with the build. Not sure if they were sold separately or not? (I'll let Ryan explain)
From the start, the thing that REALLY concerned me about the build was the quality of the lens (this is not dog'sbestfriends) fault, but a manufacturing issue with the coating, or at lest this is what it appears to me to be.
I have a 405G1 lens on RHD's build and the splash doesn't look anything like this.
Ryan had mentioned that the slash seemed strange to him. Sure enough, at home I noticed something was defiantly odd. A couple of times Ryan explained to me that he thought dust might have gotten on the lens surface. I had another look with a magnifying lens.
The lens coating looked as though it has flecked off in places, creating a swiss cheese pattern (major lens artifacts)! :thinking: :undecided:
Also the focusing ability of this build ( I suspect the copper module) doesn't allow for minimal divergence. Best spot distance is only just a tad bit less than 2m. :wtf:
HOWEVER, Output is quite stable. 2358mW max with an average around 2200mW at 60 seconds run time, is pretty decent. Obvious that copper has SERIOUS advantages over Aluminum and that is getting the heat away from the diode fast! Ryan will be showing and explaining more. I want to leave him room to post. After all this is HIS laser.

Thanks for taking a look at the laser, I'll be waiting for what Ryan has to say as well!

Seoul_lasers said:

405G1 lens that this build came with.
I know I have something to say about this!...
The lens coating looked as though it has flecked off in places, creating a swiss cheese pattern (major lens artifacts)!

Click to expand...

That is actually a 405-G-2 lens. All of the G2s seem to have some VERY minor factory imperfections in the coating which are only visible in an unfocused beam, but I haven't seen anything like you are describing. If the lens is in fact defective, I will see that it is taken care of.

Seoul_lasers said:

Also the focusing ability of this build ( I suspect the copper module) doesn't allow for minimal divergence. Best spot distance is only just a tad bit less than 2m. :wtf:

Click to expand...

The focusing range of that laser is adjustable. The focusing ring can be changed so that it stops at or past infinity when it butts up against the body. There is no problem with the copper module, if it is not focusing to minimal divergence, it just needs a quick tweak.

Thanks for taking a look! :beer:

Well I gave Ryan the beam shots to upload. So, we'll wait and see his review.
The average for 1 minute run time on the Ophir20c
is 2207.97mW. That is seriously stable !
I was quite impressed to say the least.
I'm guessing if I had allowed a longer run time, say 2 minutes , I would have seen
2200mW on the par.

That "swiss cheese" effect you're getting with the lens is in fact dust and/or residue. I've solved this problem by simplying removing the retaining ring on the G-2, and cleaning the lens with a microfiber cloth and some aerosol spray at the end to remove the dust without contact with more dust on the cloth. If need be, use a LITTLE alcohol with a Q-tip.

Good luck,
Ryan

Seoul_lasers said:

Just saw ryansoh3's "Bushwhacker", and LPM'd it using both a Laserbee and the new Ophir20C from Trevor. I met Ryan at the local Apple retailer here in central Seoul and went to a local Starbucks and ordered him a coffee and we talked a bit. Ryan is a really decent, smart person and I am happy that he has realized the importance of having a hobby! :beer:

Click to expand...

Thanks for metering my laser, Seoul! It was a pleasure meeting you.

Seoul_lasers said:

Seller looks like they included safety wear with the build. Not sure if they were sold separately or not?

Click to expand...

DBF included the two pairs of Uvex goggles for $15. He offered $5 for one, but I suggested two pairs. (I think I took his personal one as well.)

RyanElectro said:

That "swiss cheese" effect you're getting with the lens is in fact dust and/or residue. I've solved this problem by simplying removing the retaining ring on the G-2, and cleaning the lens with a microfiber cloth and some aerosol spray at the end to remove the dust without contact with more dust on the cloth. If need be, use a LITTLE alcohol with a Q-tip.

Good luck,
Ryan

Click to expand...

Yeah, I tried blowing it with a air blower made for the camera optics, the one you squeeze. Seoul also tried using 20% ethanol to clean it up, but to no avail. Thanks for your suggestion though. If I do take out the lens, is there a specific orientation? Is the AR coating one way?

Dogs Best Friend said:

Seoul_lasers said:

Also the focusing ability of this build ( I suspect the copper module) doesn't allow for minimal divergence. Best spot distance is only just a tad bit less than 2m. :wtf:

Click to expand...

The focusing range of that laser is adjustable. The focusing ring can be changed so that it stops at or past infinity when it butts up against the body. There is no problem with the copper module, if it is not focusing to minimal divergence, it just needs a quick tweak.
Thanks for taking a look! :beer:

Click to expand...

As DBF said, the reason it was not focusing to infinity was because somehow, the position of the lens and the focus ring had shifted. No biggie. It does take some trial and error, but I quickly fixed it.

That being said, the teflon tape seems to be becoming loose. Could it be wearing off? Sometimes I notice that when I screw the adapter all the way in to the laser, it's not infinity. It often goes past that.

Anyways, the output is VERY stable. I'll upload the LPM graph in a moment, but with the massive the heatsink, this laser has an amazing performance.

Many thanks to Seoul_Lasers for metering my laser for free (and a cup of coffee as well) and Dog's Best Friend for his stunning laser.

I'll post a review with lots of pictures and beamshots soon.

Cheers!
-Ryan

If the teflon tape on the focus ring is coming too loose, get it to where it needs to be, and use a sharpy to make a reference mark on the back of the focus ring and the side of the lens barrel (on the threads). Unscrew it, put some threadlocker on it, and screw it back in until the marks line up again. I was thinking about doing that before sending it, but I thought I should leave it up to you to set it right where you want.

The lenses are easy to take out of the lens barrel. They are convex on one side, so you can't really put it back in wrong. the convex side goes to the front. It might be a good idea to remove it and clean it like R.E. suggested. Be careful not to over-tighten the retaining ring when you screw it back in so you don't crack the lens. Hopefully, it is just stubborn dust (which can be hard to remove without removing the lens). If the coating really is defective, I'll send you a new lens.

Dogs Best Friend said:

The lenses are easy to take out of the lens barrel. They are convex on one side, so you can't really put it back in wrong. the convex side goes to the front. It might be a good idea to remove it and clean it like R.E. suggested. Be careful not to over-tighten the retaining ring when you screw it back in so you don't crack the lens. Hopefully, it is just stubborn dust (which can be hard to remove without removing the lens). If the coating really is defective, I'll send you a new lens.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I wanted to say. You won't be able to properly clean w/o getting it out. Tough residue easily gets back on using alcohol with not 99% purity, you get those water residue marks which worsens the problem. The key is using the alcohol and wiping it off immediately with a dry absorbent material.

Here's the extremely impressive LPM graph:


Seoul included a few notes as well:


About the lens:
I managed to take it out and clean it with pure alcohol twice, and the swiss cheese artifacts improved a bit. Still not sure if the remaining artifacts are normal.
I'm having trouble taking a picture with my DSLR. There simply is way too much contrast. The center is clipped out (pure white) and the edges are completely dark. In real life, however, it's perfectly viewable. I'm not sure why this is... Even my iPod touch has too much contrast.

Meanwhile, here's pics of the laser with and without the lens that Seoul took, after he cleaned the lens. Do you mind telling us the camera and the settings you used?





Cheers!

Good post Ryan!
Actually I used my iPhone 4s to take those pictures.
It really doesn't matter about the camera you use, blue output falls in the peak sensitivity range of most CCD sensors. example : Blue 460nm/spectral sensitivity approx 90%.
a 2W laser spot overwhelms most sensors and as such, you've got to winden you focus on the laser to diffuse the light as much as possible.
Adjust your DSLRs f/stop. The higher value for ƒ = focal length divided by the effective diameter. It is essentially a measure in lens speed. Higher speed in bright conditions give a clearer, less saturated photo.
The first pic is the raw output without the lens, the second is the cleaned lens pic.
Note the splash pattern is still extremely terrible. Before cleaning this, there was solid black marks, that most certainly was dust. After cleaning these disappeared completely.

- I looked at the len via a magnifying lens, the coating job is horrific. Visible when you turn the lens to the light, it's missing coating. Scratching a lens doesn't give a pattern like this.

Yep... Looks like something is wrong with the coating. I will shoot you a new lens element (free of charge of course). Since you already have the lens barrel, you can just drop the new one in. I apologize for the inconvenience, I wish you didn't have to wait so long for the new lens, but it's on its way :beer:

Thanks! That would be very very kind of you.
Before you shipped the laser, did you notice any artifacts caused by the lens?

Cheers!
-Ryan

Edit: LPF wouldn't let me rep you again.
Will do as soon as it allows me.

It definitely didn't look like that when it left here. I don't have personal experience with this, but I would assume that a defective coating could degrade over time. It's also possible that minor dust was burned onto the lens, or some other crazy thing happened... I guess we will never know.