Moderate Green laser(visable beam) reccomendation

Hello all,

I've been over your forums for the past.... sheesh its been like 4 hours now. You people are hooked into some pretty amazing scientific projects. Honestly I started out wanting a powered laser pointer but now I know more about lasers then I think I wanted to.

So anyway, I would like a new toy to play with for a while. I have a bunch of red lasers and I think I'll save the blue purchase for when I have a salary to blow on frivolous items... this leaves green. I would love a green laser that I can see the beam at least at night(I've seen some of your signatures and the green beams in your garages in the dark look amazing to me). It would be cool if I could see it during the day.. but hey... its a toy who cares. There are green laser pointers at my local fry's electronics for 80$ and don't even output 5mW... I was looking online and the DIY parts for a green diode that can melt balloons is around 15$. I don't like the concept of a loose wire holding a high powered laser pointing in some random direction in my house.

Going over your safety section I've come to the conclusion that I don't want anything higher then 50mW because I know I'd accidentally reflect it off the one piece of reflective confetti left on the floor on the other side of the room after last years new years party and wind up slicing my arm off. And I definitely want an IR filter? reading this forum lead me to believe IR = cancer... that should explain that. And I'd like a nice ... I dunno cover? so I don't accidentally press my leg against something with the laser in my pocket and set my pants on fire.

I figured if I gave a decent description to you enthusiasts you would have the experience to pick out a few models immediately off the top of your head.

notes:
Under 50mW (just enough to see the beam clearly and not slice of valuable appendages)
IR filter? (don't want to go blind without at least seeing a cool flash of green in my eyes)
Cap? thing to stop accidental use?
Under 70ish bucks (the cheaper the better as long as its safe to play with.. its just a toy for me)


P.S. I was wondering... I've seen hack tutorials online where you buy a 10$(including shipping) laser on ebay and tweak the potentiometer to boost the power of the laser to burn things. After reading your posts and observing the video's again I'm sure you'll all have something to say about that. However, is it possible? or is it just soooooo not recommended that you wont even justify it with an answer?


So If I'm repeating something I missed after searching the forums for hours I apologize. Hopefully in wasting your time I'll at least be able to let you know that newbs on forums like this(like me) appreciate any educated response anyone can give.

~ICE

Re: Moderate Green laser(visable beam) reccomendat

ok
First of all, NOBODY makes their own green lasers. The price of the peices and the time it takes is WAYYYYYYY more than you can buy one for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DPSS
You can read that, thats how you make a green beam, it involves shining infa-red light through a series of high quality coated crystals which alter the lights frequency and all that good stuff. They have to be extremely well aligned and could take months to make on your own.

Diodes that emit green light straight away are being tested, but pretty much non existant, incredibly expensive and work only in extreme conditions (temp for instance)

IR doesn't mean cancer, its light on the right side of the visible spectrum that humans can't see. The danger here is that you won't blink when you get hit with IR. Any laser we recommend to you will have an IR filter.

I've never heard of a case of limbs being removed by a portable laser. Lighting pants on fire also won't happen. These lasers will melt very thing rubber, and light small matches, but the size of a pair of pants will provide it with enough heatsinking and have a high enough ignition temperature that you won't be able to set it alight with a normal portable laser...

Never carry a laser in your pocket not in a case, you don't want dust and stuff getting on the lense, plus if you sit on the button you'll ruin it.

you CAN alter a pot to get more power. Why do you think they don't ship them out of the factory with the pot cranked up? It will shorten the life span, but can be worth the time if you do it in moderation. Also, ebay lasers are all BS. Low quality, no IR filters, made up specs and whatnot. Don't buy from them.

It seems you think these are MUCH more powerful than they actually are. you really don't have to worry a huge amount about safety if your eyes are protected and you treat it with respect (don't let little kids use it and whatnot)

I'd recommend you pick up a pair of laser goggles with this (nes_ds sells them cheaper than most i'm pretty sure) thats all the safety you'll need atleast for now.


Anyways, good luck

Re: Moderate Green laser(visable beam) reccomendat

Altering the pot will give you minimal power at most as most greens have APC, It will also shorten the life of your laser.

How did you come to the conclusion IR gives you cancer from reading on these forums? IR is kinda over rated, people worry more about the IR than the beam of the laser, the beam is where the power is, ir fans out like flashlight throw.

Under 50mW (just enough to see the beam clearly and not slice of valuable appendages) .... Dealextreme


IR filter? (don't want to go blind without at least seeing a cool flash of green in my eyes) .... dealextreme 'true' lasers


Cap? thing to stop accidental use?... Leave it in the box/case or take the batterys out.


Under 70ish bucks (the cheaper the better as long as its safe to play with.. its just a toy for me) .... For your price range, again dealextreme, depending on what you're doing you'll need goggles, if you're just pointing out stars and whatnot goggles are not important, burning upclose goggles should be used. I'd recomend the 'true' 30mw, seems adequate for your needs. you'll also have enough change to get some nice rechargeable batteries and another laser if you need/want one.

Re: Moderate Green laser(visable beam) reccomendat

I'll second the reconmendation on the Tru30 @ DealExtreme. Got mine a few weeks ago and love it. Beam is highly visible at night, visible during day in a darker room. Even slightly visible outside when really dark clouds have it looking like evening hours. Even has enough power to pop a balloon if properly 'prepped' with a sharpie.

Re: Moderate Green laser(visable beam) reccomendat

Better clear up a few things. It was 3am so it seemed a lot clearer back then.

By IR = cancer I meant like a silent killer. Like you said you wont blink because sometimes you don't know its there.

As for the slicing off arms thing, that was hyperbole obviously. I just think things that can take out your eyes so quickly need the same respect as say... a pellet gun or a knife.

Also as for the whole building my own thing. I thought it would be cool that I personally made it. The original tutorial was in a red laser actually I thought since you could get blue ray diodes you could probably get green ones as well. Just a lack of experience there.
(kipkay's page......)

I was just hoping you could give me an alternative to spending $80.99 at my local store for a better deal online. I work in computers so I know you can buy components online for FARRR cheaper and still get the ~same~ quality... I suppose this isn't the case here. I was thinking of something like DealExtreme but with more reliable shipping. I'd pay an extra 20 on top of the 24 for one week shipping or less arrival time. has anyone tried their EMS?

is there a price point between:

dealextreme....30mW true($26)
and
ultralasers.co.... 50mW green ($80)

(sorry I can't link yet?)

Thanks again for the replies. Its amazing to me that you are all so knowledgeable. Most of the tech forums I visit on the job don't even come close to this level of quality in a community.

Re: Moderate Green laser(visable beam) reccomendat

Ah, I thought you meant actual cancer, someone once thought a laser could affect your sperm count or something, can't remember the post but it was funny reading. You'd be amazed at some of the missconcepions people have.

Now to the important stuff

Ems is a no when it comes to lasers (and not much faster from my experience). Dx shipping is slow but reliable, and it's tracked/registerd.

I've never had a laser from ultra lasers, but if you did get the dx30 you'd have enough change to have the components to make your own red. I think the diode/housing/driver is $40 or so from stonetek.org plus $26 for the green =$66 leaving change to buy a nice looking housing from dx to put it in.

You need 5-10 posts before you can post links but if you space them out a mod will fix them for you.

As for community of the forum people here are friendly and help out where they can.

Ps welcome to the LPF, The most happenenest laser place on the interweb

Re: Moderate Green laser(visable beam) reccomendat

You could check out www.novalasers.com

They're considered to be the best balance between price and reliability (24 dollar SUPERRRR fast shipping as well)

If you're really on a budget, go for a dealextreme.

If you're handy /w a soldering iron, order a diode+aixiz module +driver kit from SenKat