I recently purchased a 150mW blue pointer from Sanwu after having some questions about this model in the forum here. After some expected pandemic-related delays (probably could have picked a better time to order it...) it's here. Skip to the pictures below, if you like.
Despite the website saying things were shipping as usual, I reached out via email after the tracking failed to budge after about a week and they promptly replied that it would be on its way but may be held up. I let them know I completely understood. The batteries showed up, but the Laser took another 2 weeks and tracking never moved beyond the first stage of shipping until suddenly it arrived in the US a couple days before getting to my door. I wiped everything down with a bleach solution just to be safe.
It'd been a while since I'd bought a laser and I'm pretty happy with this one. It was $70 shipped ($40 for the laser, $20 for the batteries, and $10 postage). I already had a charger. Here are the highlights:
So yeah, this is one heck of an impressive star pointer, at an excellent price. If I'm being honest, it's probably a bit too bright for star pointing, and the astronomers tend to prefer red in order to preserve night vision anyway. Still, there's nothing quite like firing that beautiful 445 nm beam into the night sky. This laser is not without its minor quality issues, but I'm very happy with it. I'm also glad I didn't opt for the far more powerful models. The 1.6W is frighteningly close in price to the 150 mW, but this checks all the boxes just fine.
Despite the website saying things were shipping as usual, I reached out via email after the tracking failed to budge after about a week and they promptly replied that it would be on its way but may be held up. I let them know I completely understood. The batteries showed up, but the Laser took another 2 weeks and tracking never moved beyond the first stage of shipping until suddenly it arrived in the US a couple days before getting to my door. I wiped everything down with a bleach solution just to be safe.
It'd been a while since I'd bought a laser and I'm pretty happy with this one. It was $70 shipped ($40 for the laser, $20 for the batteries, and $10 postage). I already had a charger. Here are the highlights:
- Not shown in the pictures are the wrist strap and keys that go to the safety lock. The colors mean the opposite of what I would have thought: Red means Locked/Safe, Green means On/Ready to fire. The keys are removable in either position. Not the most intuitive, but once you know it works fine. EDIT: I also just realized there is no warning label.
- The laser came with a removable diffraction end-cap. With it on, you get a fun dot pattern which varies as you twist it--turning it counter-clockwise removes it, clockwise varies the pattern. I have a slight fear that there'd be no way to get it off if ever it managed to get screwed on tighter than the friction in the pattern-varying twist could overcome. I'm probably just paranoid.
- The momentary button has a slightly odd feel to it--turning it on feels good, but releasing takes just a moment to turn off. It's not sticky, it's that it requires almost a complete release of your thumb before it un-clicks even though the elctrical contact releases almost immediately. It's hard to describe, but the button feels a bit sticky because the physical click lags behind the power cut-off.
- The dot and beam are brighter than anything I own. The beam is well collimated, visible in a moderately lit room, and extremely visible at night. I was particularly impressed with how visible the multiple beams from the diffraction cap were. Even with the power divided across dozens of smaller beams, many are still visibible even in a dimly lit room and easily at night. Without the diffraction cap, this laser outshines both my 75 mW green and 200 mW red--by a lot. The color is pretty much what you see in a common blue LED, though a bit richer. The photos tend to make it look more violet than it is.
- I did not try to burn anything with it though I assume it would perform similar to any other 150 mW device. I intend to stick with star pointing.
- Batteries go in negative (-) side first, positive (+) side toward back. They are a pair of 3.7V, Flat-top 18350's. Together, they are very similar in size to a single 18650.
- The host definitely warms up with use. I don't want to push it, so I've kept it on maybe 10 seconds at a time at most, but it's enough to feel the body warm up.
- The Host is a clever, modular design. An extension to the battery section may be removed between the driver section and the battery cap in order to run it on a single 18350--presumably this is for a system that can get by on less voltage. Without knowing the details of what voltages different types of diodes run at, I assume 445 nm diodes simply need more voltage than a single 3.7V cell can give. Weight-wise, with batteries installed, it feels comfortable in the hand.
So yeah, this is one heck of an impressive star pointer, at an excellent price. If I'm being honest, it's probably a bit too bright for star pointing, and the astronomers tend to prefer red in order to preserve night vision anyway. Still, there's nothing quite like firing that beautiful 445 nm beam into the night sky. This laser is not without its minor quality issues, but I'm very happy with it. I'm also glad I didn't opt for the far more powerful models. The 1.6W is frighteningly close in price to the 150 mW, but this checks all the boxes just fine.
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