Hello LPF! :-)

I've been viewing this forum for a few weeks and decided to create an account.


My first contact with(non-generic 1mW red) lasers was in 2009, when green lasers started to get popular, espacially here in Brazil, when 14 year olds started bringing 50mW 's to soccer matches and pointed it to the goalkeeper's face. A few weeks later, i bought my first laser, an ebay 5mW greenie. It was all I needed until 2010, when WL started to gain popularity with their IIIb lasers. I then, discovered this forum, and after reading some posts, I ordered a 200mW rayfoss laser(at the time, they were reliable, don't know about them now). It arrived at my door ~1 month later, I was really excited when I saw that "Green Laser Pointer" white box, it served me well since...
For the last 2 years, I got interested in all kinds of useless-but-fun stuff, including binoculars, Night vision goggles, flashlights and telescopes.

A few weeks ago, i accidentally acessed rayfoss.com again, I noticed that 1W blue lasers were being sold at an acessible price, i came here and heard of lazerer.com Sooooo... 2 weeks ago I ordered a 1.2W Blue laser from them, I later changed my order for a 1.5W Rifle.

I was plannig on reviewing the "lazerer" when it arrives, thats why I created my account here.

I'm planning on buying a violet, a red and IR ~100mW pointers in the next months. And after that, try to build my first laser(planning a 50mW red one).



Well thats it, and sorry for whatever english mistakes, I'm from Brazil.

Welcome to the forum! :wave:


IR ~ 100mW is very hard to see, practically invisible.

Make sure you use goggles when using high powered lasers, your eyesight is precious!

You can easily build violet/red lasers at 100mW on your own, there are tutorials on this forum, just use search!

Welcome! I would be hard pressed to come up with a reason to make an IR laser at 100mW, but if that suits your fancy just make sure to have the appropriate goggles. I can't wait to see what all you build!

Welcome to LPF

I too considered an IR laser but decided against it when I realized the main reason I use lasers is because they create cool beams and an IR or NIR wouldn't really be visible so why bother.

If you want to make your own red laser I would suggest using an LPC-826 for a laser with outputs below 300mW and a Mitsubishi ML501P73 for outputs higher and up to 1W output. The LPC-826 makes a nice clean round dot at 660nm while the Mitsu makes sort of a line/rectangular dot at 638nm. The odd shaped dot is the sacrifice for much higher outputs and highly visible beam. Both my LPC and Mitsu can hit objects miles away with ease.

Got it, but I'll only buy a diode to build it later, I'm planning to buy a Violet and red ones before building one myself

I think typically 405nm(violet/UV) lasers tend to be better when you make them yourself since you can get some pretty high outputs from an S06J diode that would normally cost a lot more from a shop. That is at least from what I have found so far.

What about the 12x BDR-205's from Lazerer? Do those give comparable outputs to the SO6J's?

I believe the 12x BDR-205 diodes have a very similar power curve but with a little luck and if you are daring enough to try they seem to be on occasion capable of 15-20% more output. I don't know about current costs on the 12x BDR-205 diodes but S06Js are currently being sold by DTR for $52 shipped. Anyone know what a 12x BDR-205 goes for now?

OOPS! I meant BDR-206, dunno if that makes a difference. They are going for 34.99

It does make a difference. From what I read the S06J appears to be superior. S06Js seem to cap off at 800mW while the BDR-206s seem to cap off at about 700mW. Also Lazerer charges shipping which appears to be an additional $2 and it is an entire sled and a whole project in itself just to extract the diode.

I actually LOVE doing the extractions. It is my favorite part of building a laser. Even better than just the sled is when I get to extract the diode from an entire DVD drive. I don't know about anyone else, but it feels great sitting down with my tools and meticulously removing each piece until I can extract the sled. At that point I put the DVD drive back together completely (minus the sled of course), and then I set to work slowly stripping away the PCB Boards from the sled. After all of those are off I remove the frontal lens assembly so I can see to where all the optics are.

I don't know, call me crazy, but there isn't really a feeling quite like plucking the diamond from the heap of rubbish with cool precision. After extracting the diodes, I extract each of the optics in the sled(can be a real PITA though, especially if the epoxy is really good).

I have to agree fully that extracting a diode is a wonderful thing but its only for people with exp, steady hands, time, and tools. The awesome part with extracting a diode is the feeling of satisfaction you get when you finally pull that bugger out and toss it in a host and then set a piece of paper on fire