when do you think green (DPSS) laser prices will stabilize?

As with most technology, green lasers have been consistently dropping in price. Out of curiousity, I decided to do some research on the past prices of some of the best-known laser companies.

I used 200 mW as a benchmark as it seems to be a very common output.

Optotronics (RPL-200)

2006: $859
2008: $709
2010: $629
2013: $569

Laserglow (Aries-200)

2006: $1,689
2008: $889
2010: $589
2013: $589 (no change)

Laserglow's products generally aren't geared towards hobbyists, yet their prices have been dropping in a similar fashion.

Dragon Lasers (200 mW Hulk)

2007: $679.99
2009: $685.55 (price went up, inflation?)
2011: $555
2013: $495

It's hard to do a comparison for NOVAlasers because the company doesn't seem to carry the NOVA series anymore. However, the most recent price of theNOVA350 was $1,899, which is quite a lot.

It's also hard to do a comparison for SKYlasers and Wicked Lasers because their products have frequently changed over the past few years.

So my question to LPF is, when do you think the prices of green lasers will stabilize?

I personally think the average price of green lasers will fall to $0.50/mW or so, and this will happen around 2020. Anyone else have any predictions?

Laser prices don't really stabilize, they fall and/or are eventually replaced with a newer technology(see direct diode greens that are now emerging) that is once again more expensive. The fire dragon III 300mw can be found for around $220 and some peak above 500mw, Which is cheaper than $0.50 per mw.

I think that the price reduction of the companies you list might have more to do with reducing price margins in order to compete with the cheap vendors such as DX. If you want to measure price of manufacturing you should get data directly from CNI or something like that, perhaps from the group buys on this forum.

Either way, I believe that before the prices of DPSS green stabilizes, DPSS will be irrelevant due to practical green diodes emerging on the market. In 2020 a DPSS greenie will be like HeNe's are today.

I think Grix hit it square on the head: competition is the main driver of price drops here. Those 532nm lasers don't have as many industrial/product uses like laser diodes found in sleds or projectors; so they won't see those kinds of market forces affecting prices.

Take a look at Wicked Laser's prices over that time period. They used to price their lasers at a very expensive level when they were one of the few companies marketing high powered lasers as a cool luxury item. Later, I was surprised to find out that their prices had dropped to semi-reasonable levels (ignoring quality issues) as other companies started selling lasers in nicer hosts for cheaper.

Many companies like Laserglow don't even manufacture their own lasers; they just rebrand lasers sold out of China such as CNI (Laserglow). People have found their OEMs and undercut them on price and availability where it used to be a more exclusive product. Recently, there was a thread from some store out of Thailand and they were politely informed that other sell the same S-KY lasers for far less.

Competition is great stuff!

While with cheaper modules than the lasers you listed, we are already seeing a lot of green lasers at $0.50/mW.

In the two, two and half years I have been actively looking at lasers, prices have consistently continued to fall.

I expect this trend to only continue and accelerate, to a point where the bottleneck will be the battery, and not the diode (module) in terms of power in a handheld.

Hopefully those green laser diodes get developed too. They'll be expensive at first, but maybe they'll be able to achieve higher powers and eventually come down because of mass production.

I was talking about the common DPSS lasers, but yeah, I certainly expect the diode lasers to fully replace them sooner or later.

Existing technology is also constantly being improved. Just six or seven years ago, it was rare for a DPSS green laser to go over 350 mW. Now, they're breaking the class IV barrier all the time. I wonder what the next five years will bring us?

^ Hopefully some better 473's or more obscure wavelengths

I'll keep dreaming though...

On the fence about green DI, sure will be the way to go if they do make tight beams of higher power in future, however they seem to be going the way of the flashlight for tv/projector usage, like the multimode blues and reds of higher power. More optics required.
We can hope though!

Can remember around 2006 a wicked nexus 100mW dpss cost me about $500-600NZD with some barr and straud goggles, roughly $400-450usd nowadays.
2W high grade cni dpss labby costs about 3k+ usd now.. since the early days they have gone from flashlights to near OPSL beam spec, that part I am a big fan of!
DPSS has finally been overtaken by OPSL for high end scientific applications, e.g. stuff with M² of 1.1
This has dropped competing DPSS prices, secondhand especially, because the OPSL can change power output much smoother without loss of beamspec, providing multiple uses from one laser platform.