Meierlight 1500mw 532 analog

Hello,
I was waffling between posting this here or at the deals and discounts thread and decided on here for the time being. Last year I inquired with Meierlight about doing a group buy on several different lab models I was interested in with hopes a few other might join in and bring the total cost down. Ultimately the effort fell apart for a few different reasons. These were generally a lack of enough interest, and Meierlight's delay in working out some pricing due to their holidays (apparently they have some very long holidays around their New Years, etc). Essentially the effort was forgotten about until Bishan Fang emailed me this morning. Bishan says he's got a deal on this analog 1500mw 532 he is willing to sell me at $590 + shipping. Their standard price on this unit is about $890 so that's a sizable savings. It is not labeled as a CNI like some of their lab lasers so it's unclear at present if this is a CNI head with an off brand driver, or an unbranded/rebranded CNI. I am awaiting a response on a few details including this one.

Some of you are familiar with Mierelight, others may be less familiar. Personally I've owned a 1800mW 532nm Mierelight that appears to be this model (off brand driver with what I suspect is a CNI head), and I had high regards for mine. It functioned without a hitch. It was very stable in output, mode, etcetera and had good beam characteristics. I eventually sold it to another forum memeber here who, as far as I know has enjoyed it and has not had any issues with it (it was bought about 20 months ago and sold to the forum member close to a year ago IIRC).

Although I am not as well versed in lab lasers as some others here at the forum, before I bought the last one from Mierelight I did a lot of research on the company and forums and came to the conclusion they sold a better than average product at a good value. Those with experience with this company had almost entirely good reviews. The only issue I recall learning about while researching them prior to my purchase was a couple of customers had some issues with the driver that required replacement. They apperently just died without harming the head and required replacement with a brand new driver. As far as the replacement of the driver goes, it seemed those customers ultimately had a positive experience in working out their issues and Mierelight offered good and timely service without any shenanigans.

This price of $590 for an advertised ">1500mw" 532nm analogue is the best I have ever seen for a new unit. Although I don't need one at the moment I may buy one anyways for later use. That considered, there may be one or more people here wanting to get in on a deal like this, and there may be room for even more savings on shipping and base price with more buyers. So, while this is a good deal IMO and can be had I presume by anyone viewing this post today, I would be willing to see if I could get the cost down even lower if there were a few more interested parties.

My communications with Bishan Fang have always been cordial and he is a very helpful agenet of theirs. Nevertheless, there are at times delays in getting the exact information I want to extract from him due to language barriers (my perception), and it may take a few days to get more questions answered and a final deal nailed down. So, if your even slightly interested in this deal and could be a potential participant in in a group buy / quantity discount arrangement, please contact me ASAP with your queries so I can get this process moving in a timely fashion. The questions I have on the table right now are 1) manufacturer of head and driver 2) price of a TTL unit in this model 3) any additional deals he has on slightly higher or lower powered units.

His email this AM was an unsolicited one since things fizzled out 4-5 months ago with my GB attempt. This tells me that he is possibly tapping into his leads to get his sales up, or they are in some sort of position prompting them to eliminate inventory. Either way, I suspect there is room for further negotiation with a quantity purchase and I intend to try to lower the price even more. Even if it's $20 that's worth the effort IMO.

If a group buy is finalized, for the participants residing in the CONUS I would offer to act as the surrogate recipient for shipping. This would only be if it lowers total price for everyone. (I.e. Have them ship all or most units directly to me and I would re-ship them out via flat rate USPS to everyone). Again, I would offer this only if it significantly lowered the total shipping costs for everyone. It may not be a significant enough savings but I'm willing to look into it. In that case it was a considerable savings, I would front the money and buy all the untits myself. I would require a non refundable deposit of a nominal amount from participants who have me front the money for their unit (I could probably cover the cost of 10 units, PM me to discuss this). Once I've received the lasers then the balance to be paid would be requested (Paypal for everyone's protection) and I would ship them to the purchaser when funds are received. If I front any money and the purchaser doesn't pay the balance in a predetermined timeframe then the deposit is forfeited. I can't sit on a few thousand dollars worth of lasers indefinitely and would have to sell the laser at a cut rate to get my from money back. That's where the deposit comes in, what ever amount under cost I would have to sell the laser for would be taken for the deposit and any remaining funds (if any) would be sent back to the person placing the deposit. I'm thinking somewhere around $75-100 deposit but this can be discussed.

I am hoping there may be four or more interested parties. I doubt much more savings will be had with less but we can find out either way. I also would like to have any units being purchased paid for and in route to the states within 10 days, or there abouts.

As with most group buys done here I am not looking to, nor arranging for, any personal gain that would not be shared by all parties. I make no profit or acquire any savings more than anyone else participating. I'm basically doing it because I love this forum and am in a position to do this today. It's probably not worth the effort for the savings I will receive personally but that's not the point. From my experience in GB's the organizer generally ends up incurring more headaches than savings. Yet people continue to organize them and I suspect it's because, like me, they value the forum and it's members and are willing to step up so others can benefit. I figure it's my turn to accept these headaches since it's been done for me so many times in the past by others.

All communications with the company, invoices, or other related financial information will be made available to all participating parties. The "books will be open" for all to review.

I have emailed Bishan that I would see if there was more interest in buying several units at the forum so he is aware already of a potential quantity purchase. I expect a response around 1-2 in the morning.

Below is a link to the unit it appears he is offering. While I'm not 100% certain this is the exact one, it does fit all the descriptions of what he emailed me. I have asked as well if this is the unit in question. Even if it's not it's a good representation and comparison for the moment.

meierlight

PM me with questions ASAP. For fastest response from me, I have enabled the email option in my user preferences so you can email me direct through the LPF forum.

For the moderators- should there be no significant interest here I may ask you allow me to edit appropriately this post and switch it to the "Deals and Discounts" threads in the next few days.

Thanks for looking. I'm happy to answer any questions as best I can but I am back on the clock this week so response time may be less than light speed.i will do my best to answer within 12-18 hours so if you don't hear back from me immediately, I'm not ignoring you, just really busy for the next five days. Most responses should be answered within hours if you email rather than PM me.

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable week. Look forward to hearing from everyone.

Cheers!
Jmillerdoc

Interesting! Anyone looking to make a projector would probably be interested in such a high powered lab 532! Definitely want to see where this goes at the very least!

wannaburnstuff said:

Interesting! Anyone looking to make a projector would probably be interested in such a high powered lab 532! Definitely want to see where this goes at the very least!

Click to expand...

Hey Isaac, I was in the process of editing this post when you responded. You may want to read it again. It's changed somewhat.

I skimmed originally. So long, many text, all characters. So I don't notice much of a difference :/ Lol, but don't worry about it. I still get the general idea.

$590 for a 1500mw" 532nm analogue is a great price for a green lab type laser!!!!
Do you know if Meierlight power specs tend to be conservative or can we expect
the laser to be over spec, by some amount say 10 to 20% or so?

COMMANDR said:

$590 for a 1500mw" 532nm analogue is a great price for a green lab type laser!!!!
Do you know if Meierlight power specs tend to be conservative or can we expect
the laser to be over spec, by some amount say 10 to 20% or so?

Click to expand...

What I can attest to is my experience only and that's they are conservative in their ratings. When I bought my 1800mw 532 from them it was the exact unit they were marketing as a 1.5w analog unit. How I know this is because I had heard from someone else who bought one of these and inquired of them if they had something between 1500mw and 2000mw. He was told they had what we would consider a "binned" 1500,w unit that output a stable 1800mw. IIRC there was a thread in this here or elsewhere that prompted me to buy mine. At the time I head about this 1800mw unit available for less than $1000 I emailed them and asked if they had any more of these 1800mw units (they were not listed on their website and never have been AFAIK). Bishan informed me they did and sent me the .pdf file on the unit which was labled as a 1500mw unit. I asked him "Bishan, I wanted one of these 1800mW units and you gave me a spec sheet for a 1500mW unit, what's up?" He responded in effect that it was the same exact unit and that he guaranteed it would do >1800mw and do it with stability. At that time IIRC I paid $890 + shipping and within a week I received the pictured unit and it did exactly as promised. In fact the head was even labeled >1800mw. It didn't do much over 1800mw, maybe 20-30mw, but it was rock solid after a short warm up, settling just slightly above 1800mW.

It's been a while since I've written about my unit and I have not gone back and reviewed my post in the BST thread but I'm pretty sure what numbers I've given above are extremely close to what I wrote back then. Later when I have time I will find my thread and post a link. I'm sure you could find it pretty easily.

So, in short, they rated conservatively in my experience. I believe they probably had a particular series of head units built to output a range from 1500-1800 or so that could be set with the driver and sold at different price points. Either that or they "binned" them. I suspect the latter is not likely considering the degree of precision these head units are built with. An M140 diode and a 1.5w DPSS are radically different and I just find it hard to believe a DPSS like this could have that much variability between units based on unmeasured or unaccounted for factors. I could see +/- 50mW from head to head but not 500. It is much more conceivable they would engineer variability like this intentionally (set with driver current and feedback) to allow the ability to market them as different powers with different pricing schemes.

I bet this unit was built to accept a driver current that would range the output from somewhere around 1200-1500mw and we would be getting one set at max. That's a semi educated hunch I have, I could be totally incorrect. I would love it if someone had more insight than my hunch and could shed light on this with some degree of certainty. I certainly don't mind being told my hunch is wrong, it's just my hunch.

Either way, if I get a stable 1500mw for $590 I will be very pleased and would expect it will be just as high a quality unit as the last one I had.

I am preparing another query in an email for this evening. If there is anything in particular you'd like me to ask let me know ASAP.

Cheers!
Jmillerdoc

Fire off the email and see what you get back. :>)

subscribed.

I just emailed Bishan at Mierelight the following email:

Bishan,
I am very interested in this laser you sent the email about. Will you please take the time to answer all of the following questions? If you will I may be able to help you sell a few more.

Question #1) How much would the cost be for 5 units? How much for 10 units?

Question #2) How much would shipping cost for 1 laser, 5 lasers, or 10 lasers sent to me using either EMS or DHL at the following address:

Tamudoc Enterprises
C/O- Jeffrey L. miller, MD
1412 NE Kingsbriar Drive
Lawton, OK, USA, 73507

***Please provide shipping cost for each different quantity of laser purchased (three different prices for each of DHL and EMS should be six total prices)***

I told several friends about this price and this laser and I may have a few other people who would like to buy one of these.

Question #3) who manufactures the laser head/DPSS module?

Question #4) who manufactures the driver?

Question #5) do you offer a TTL modulated in the same unit and, if so what would the cost be for these for 1 laser, 5 lasers, or 10 lasers?

Question #6) what is your warranty?

Question #7) once paid for, how long would it be for you to build and ship the units (1 to 10)?

Question #8) are these brand new lasers and drivers or are the refurbished?

Question #9) if these prices are for new lasers then do you have or offer refurbished lasers like this one?

Question #10) in your email you stated the power as 1500mW at 532nm. Is this the power I should expect or, as in my past purchase from you, will they power be higher than advertised? If so, approximately how much more power than advertised?

Please answer these questions as soon as possible as I may have several interested parties who would like to buy one as well. I am planning to act as the purchasing agent for all the units and will distribute them once received here in the states. This means I will likely be paying for all the units myself regardless of the quantity.

I really appreciate your help with this. I was very impressed with the last 532nm 1800mw laser you sold me. It was everything you promised and more and I am excited to receive the same level of craftsmanship on future purchases.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Jeff Miller

I will post his response as soon as it is received. I have found when dealing with these Chinese company agents it helps to frame multiple questions like I did above. Otherwise the questions don't all get answered. Even when laying it out this obvious and blatant I won't be surprised if only half get answered the first time. Cross your fingers.....

I may as well ask this question now even if it is extremely optimistic, believing I may actually find up to 10 people: if having one person (me) purchase all the lasers and having them all shipped to the states results in a significant savings then this could put me on the hook for up to about $6100 or so. Question is- What would be a reasonable deposit to ask from participants? I was thinking about 15% and this way if I got stuck with one or two non payers I could sell them off ASAP at a discounted price ($500) and not lose my shorts.

JM

As anticipated Bishan's response was only partial. He answered #1 and #2 but the remainder of the questions are left unanswered at this point.

The good news is the answers to #1 and #2 are very favorable.

Here's the bottom line: for 5 units shipped to one location brings the cost down to $550 a unit, 10 units brings the cost to $530 per unit.

So if we could pull together at least 5 people there's a very real and significant savings to be had in both base cost and shipping. Generally shipping on something like this would cost around $30-40 for air so you're looking at an effective savings there of up to about $20, provided I could re ship CONUS for under $20. The cost saving on the base per unit price is $40 so we are looking at around $60 saved on a quantity buy of five and $80 on 10 (I really doubt there's going to be ten units needed).

This is such a good deal for me I may even be willing to buy x2 for myself if we can get three other buyers.

Although I don't have a deadline it would be prudent to put this together quickly. If anyone has serious interest please use the forum tool to email me on this.

Because I am willing to front the cash on this ($2200 not including my laser cost) and it will likely take a couple weeks to receive the lasers in my hands, interested parties don't need to have the cash in hand to commit, they just need to be able to have it within 2-3 weeks. If someone needed even a little more time (4-5 weeks) to scrape pennies together, I may be willing to hold them until they can pay.

1.5w 532nm DPSS for a total cost of around $570 shipped to your doorstep is the best deal I have ever seen on a unit like this. I hope there's enough interest to put this together. I am emailing Bishan back requesting answers to the remaining questions tonight. I doubt these are refurbished as I've never seen them offered and they have never come up in the past. I only asked to open the discussion on the possibility of additional savings on refurb units. Regardless of manufacturer I'm sold on the price. I'm not aware of a DPSS manufacturer that has been identified as a bad company or a "don't buy from these guys" operation like some handheld products out there.

Ball is now in your hands, contact me if you're interested. I'm going to tell Bishan I will get an order together by the middle or latter part of next week. I am buying one for sure so if there's one other person who wants one there may even be room to just save on some shipping costs.

I'll update the post with any commitments made as they are made:
1) Jmillerdoc
2) Jmillerdoc (probably will get 2)
3) open
4) open
5) open

I will also update the responses to the remaining unanswered questions if and when they get answered.

Lastly, the warranty on these is 1 year. It shouldn't be an issue to have the warranty assigned to the end buyer since I'm acting as an intermediary purchasing agent of sorts. I will email Bishan about this as well and tell him I would expect to be able to forward the end buyers information (Name, address, etc) so the warranty is assigned to them directly and not me. Although I plan to be around for the duration of the warranty I would prefer not to have to act on the buyers behalf to effect any needed warranty claim or work.

Let's do this guys! Look, I'm in for up to two so all we need is three others who can have funds about one month from now (maybe even a little longer if needed). This should be doable.

Have an awesome weekend, look forward to yearning from some of y'all hopefully soon!
Jmillerdoc

****newsflash, new distributor found with even lower price on potentially better unit****

I posted a link to this group by thread over at Photolexicon and a couple of members there referred me to a new distributor. It appears that a CNI laser with full TTL and analog modulation can be had for $500 plus shipping. I've never heard of this distributor before and haven't had the time to vet them but it appears they are much cheaper. That is of course if they don't charge an arm and a leg for shipping and handling. Since finding this new distributor I have already contacted them about doing a group purchase. Rather than limiting myself to a savings on five or 10 units purchased, I have requested a price for purchases in excess of one unit by multiples of one (i.e. how much would one, or two, or three, etc., all the way to 10 units cost me total with shipping on each of the scenarios?)

Here is the link: MGL- H 532 1500MW - $500.00 : Laser Light-goldenstarlaser.com, Laser Light-goldenstarlaser.com

It will be interesting to see if the total cost changes once you include shipping, however I suspect it will still be much cheaper. Especially for 1to 3 units.

Additionally, I am going to email a link to this distributors add over to Mierelight and ask them if they can beat the price.

Will update the thread as soon as I hear something new. Thanks for watching!
Jmillerdoc

Well, it looks good on paper but when you add their shipping and handling costs it comes out to $135 added or $635 total. That's no saving at all. It's $45 to $85 more depending on the quantity purchased and the cost per unit from this distributor actually goes up when compared to Mierelight's prices. So, it's a gimmick ad and pricing scheme at the end of the day. I knew this was too good to be true. These guys are just tacking on the cost on the backside with their "handling" costs.

It's a bust.

But I will be using this ad to push Mierelight for an even better discount. It may be helpful after all, we will see.

Cheers!
Jmillerdoc

Ok, I need to retract the above shipping cost quote. Prior to the company's response to my email I found a shipping calculator on their website. I used this calculator to come up with this cost. When I used their calculator for one laser the shipping was calculated at $135 and when I calculated the total cost for 10 units it came to $655. Early this morning the company responded to my email inquiry on quantity discounts and bulk shipping on multiple units. Mimi, an agent of the company, emailed a response to all of my questions which I will post here shortly below. Basically it appears their shipping calculator is malfunctioning. The shipping for one laser appear to be somewhere around $46 to $53. In one part of her response she states a shipping formula that uses $4 per 0.5kg over the first 0.5kg. Later she makes a calculation for one of my other questions and uses a different factor of $3 per 0.5kg. I need to clarify this but based on LaNek's post above I suspect it's the $4 factor which brings the cost to what LaNek recalls paying. You can read the actual email response for yourself below but basically they do offer a quantity discount that appears very attractive. 3% for 2-4 units and 8% for 5-9 units. So at 5 units the discount comes to $40 which brings the laser to $460 plus around $36.20 for shipping ($53 for first unit + $32 each additional = [53+(32*4)]/5 should be 36.2 by my calculations). So, if 5 units were bought then cost per unit comes just under $500 (496.2) shipped to one location. Re shipping within the Conus should come to about $17.45 based on the flat rate large fee on USPS. $513.65 delivered to your door in about 2 weeks. Bottom line comes to about $40 saved per person. Not bad but also not amazing. Since I'm planning to buy two for myself I'd be willing to coordinate this and offer back $21 of my total savings ($80) divided to the other three buyers bringing their total to $506.65.

Also note that in here response to one of my questions she indicates the laser in question is conservatively rated at 1500mw and appears to do 1800mw. I will clarify this with her. If she is confident each of the units will output 1.8w (+/-5%) that would appear to be a helluva bargain.

There appears to be one other fairly committed participant at this point so if two more are needing this type of unit now may be a good time to buy....

Updates as I receive them.

Have a great weekend, hope all of y'all are enjoying the time off and not doing what I'm doing....work.
Jmillerdoc

Ok, I need to retract the above shipping cost quote. Prior to the company's response to my email I found a shipping calculator on their website. I used this calculator to come up with this cost. When I used their calculator for one laser the shipping was calculated at $135 and when I calculated the total cost for 10 units it came to $655. Early this morning the company responded to my email inquiry on quantity discounts and bulk shipping on multiple units. Mimi, an agent of the company, emailed a response to all of my questions which I will post here shortly below. Basically it appears their shipping calculator is malfunctioning. The shipping for one laser appear to be somewhere around $46 to $53. In one part of her response she states a shipping formula that uses $4 per 0.5kg over the first 0.5kg. Later she makes a calculation for one of my other questions and uses a different factor of $3 per 0.5kg. I need to clarify this but based on LaNek's post above I suspect it's the $4 factor which brings the cost to what LaNek recalls paying. You can read the actual email response for yourself below but basically they do offer a quantity discount that appears very attractive. 3% for 2-4 units and 8% for 5-9 units. So at 5 units the discount comes to $40 which brings the laser to $460 plus around $36.20 for shipping ($53 for first unit + $32 each additional = [53+(32*4)]/5 should be 36.2 by my calculations). So, if 5 units were bought then cost per unit comes just under $500 (496.2) shipped to one location. Re shipping within the Conus should come to about $17.45 based on the flat rate large fee on USPS. $513.65 delivered to your door in about 2 weeks. Bottom line comes to about $40 saved per person. Not bad but also not amazing. Since I'm planning to buy two for myself I'd be willing to coordinate this and offer back $21 of my total savings ($80) divided to the other three buyers bringing their total to $506.65.

Also note that in here response to one of my questions she indicates the laser in question is conservatively rated at 1500mw and appears to do 1800mw. I will clarify this with her. If she is confident each of the units will output 1.8w (+/-5%) that would appear to be a helluva bargain.

There appears to be one other fairly committed participant at this point so if two more are needing this type of unit now may be a good time to buy....

Updates as I receive them.

Have a great weekend, hope all of y'all are enjoying the time off and not doing what I'm doing....work.
Jmillerdoc

Mimi's email response to me:

Hi dear Jeff,

Thank you for your inquiry of our laser module,and I reply your questions as below:.


I have been working on arranging a group buy with Mierelight for a 532nm 1500mW DPSS laser/driver combo. I was given your information and the link to your website's ad for the CNI 1500mw 532nm with TTL and analog driver selling for $500 USD.
I have a few questions I'm hoping you would answer in order to for me to make some comparisons with Mierelight's offerings.

1) what is the shipping cost for this laser to the USA?
Below 21 KG by DHL, Shipping cost is USD25 at the first 0.5KG, per 0.5KG added, it will be USD4. If above 21KG, it is USD6.5/KG..

2) could you offer any discounts on quantities from 3-5 units? If so, what would it be and what could you offer for 5-9 units? 10 or more?
If buy 3-5pcs, we offer 3% discount. If 5-9pcs, it is 8% discount..

3) what is your warranty on these? Can you provide the terms of warranty? It is one year warranty from the date you receive the package. If you want two year warranty, the price will be more 30%..

4) if I were to buy more than one of these units could you give me the cost on shipping for 1 to 10 units? (For example could you provide it like this: 1=$25, 2=$40, 3=$50, 4=$60,,,,,10=$120)
1PCS is around 4KG, so 4KG shipping cost=USD25(the first 0.5KG)+7*3=USD46 , there are 8 0.5KG in 4KG..

5) if there is more than one shipping option what is the price for each? It has UPS, TNT, FEDEX, but usually, we send by DHL..
6) are these brand new units? Yes, it is new.
7) do you carry any refurbished units not advertised on your site? If so, what are the prices?
I send you our laser module price list in attachment, you can have a look.

8) do you have a similar unit that outputs a stable 1800mW and if so, how much would this one cost in quantities of 1, 5 , and 10 units?
CNI 1.5W power output has around 1.8W too.

9) from time of payment how long will it take to have these shipped?
One week.

I would like to purchase at least one of the advertised units and I have some friends and associates who might be interested as well depending on the savings we might gain.
I appreciate your help with this.

I also hope we can cooperate with each other in future, I will offer you good price.

Sorry for this delay, because here it is holiday from May.1 to May.3.

If any questions,please feel free to contact me.

Nice day!

mimi

OK you have my attention now and yes I would be interested in one of these but it has to be ANALOG modulation for me, Thanks for doing this Jeff, Your the MAN :beer: