Optotronics RPL-II 532 nm +1400 mW - opinions and experience?

[Alaskan]

He must be working on a nice review taking this much time! I don't care, give us a short review with beam shots! Gimmie!

 

[BobMc]

Agreed, Beamshots, Beamshots, Beamshots, :wave:

 

[astralist]

Finally! :wave:

A bit contrary to other ppl here,
I wish to see the enlarged beam spot (using some sort of beam expander or some magnifying glass)
Because IMO that's what makes DPSS worth more than diode lasers in terms of beam profile

 

[Alaskan]

I like the divergence at power from DPSS, but you are correct there is far more to a beam than that.

 

[BowtieGuy]

He must be working on a nice review taking this much time! I don't care, give us a short review with beam shots! Gimmie!

Agreed, Beamshots, Beamshots, Beamshots, :wave:

You guys know that since radim is working on this it will be a great review, with all kinds of laser p0rn to make us all drool all over ourselves!

A beamshot or two wouldn't hurt though. :yh:

 

[Alaskan]

Radim: :worthy:

 

[steve001]

Finally! :wave:

A bit contrary to other ppl here,
I wish to see the enlarged beam spot (using some sort of beam expander or some magnifying glass)
Because IMO that's what makes DPSS worth more than diode lasers in terms of beam profile

Yup. I'm spoiled by nice nice profile of a 532nm dpss. Don't care for battery operated lasers that project a rectangle or line.

 

[paul1598419]

Yup. I'm spoiled by nice nice profile of a 532nm dpss. Don't care for battery operated lasers that project a rectangle or line.

All true. There's nothing like a good Gaussian beam profile. You can never get it with a direct diode laser. That beautiful TEM00 is really something to behold. Can't wait to see this one. :yh:

 

[Encap]

Yup. I'm spoiled by nice nice profile of a 532nm dpss. Don't care for battery operated lasers that project a rectangle or line.

All true. There's nothing like a good Gaussian beam profile. You can never get it with a direct diode laser. That beautiful TEM00 is really something to behold. Can't wait to see this one. :yh:

Agree.

I hope it proves to be a good quality DPSS beam. From all accounts it should be.

I keep checking in to see if there is any word from Radim about it --wanting to hear if it is as he expected.

Radim, where are you? Everyone wants to hear something about your new RPL II.

 

[NightExplorer96]

He turned it on, burned his house down, and now only has access to his RPL II, no laptop to get to LPF :cryyy:

-Alex

 

[Radim]

My first impressions with 532 nm 1.4+ W Optotronics RPL-II

Oh, these posts guys... :drool: Allright, I do not want to make her Mrs.Columbo.



First of all sorry to keep you waiting. Not working on review yet, I cannot as there would be just kind of "this is the great laser, this is the beast..." - therefore not much value as I need to get some user experience with her. Whatever I think some first impressions are appropriate to write here. Also I (luckily) did not burnt my house down, to be honest it would not been that difficult with her. Ok, let's stop the conspiracy... I owe you a "short" explanation - if not interested, please skip the following paragraph.



Why soooooo looooong waiting? (Skip, if not interested)

I mentioned I have been working on one specialized project focussed on structured finance in my job. I made not only various suitable solutions of it but also a complex model demonstrating them almost completely in excel and prepared a presentation (including powerpoint) for my boss. Well, I work in family business, but my father (boss or one of them) is much more demanding from me than from the others. And for normal people it is not really easy, I would say for some it is impossible - if someone thinks he does not see some bulshit hidden in numbers the one presents to him, the one is terribly wrong - it takes him a few seconds to find it. And since the model approaches it my own way (based on complexity management – which is quite new and unknown approach) I needed to make it easy to understand, solid, with great presentation and to get him into it to discuss various parameters and exact settings of the model and therefore which solution will be the best. I built comprehensive mathematical aparatus for it, it uses several financial submodels (some which I developed I used earlier as well), it has various features a lot of tools for analysis, including one sheet for numerical mathematical analysis of function and much more... I basically applied my philosophy in business to get this - I'll explain it in my article, which takes me much more time to finish than I expected. On thursday I had a trial presentation with my sister (hereby many thanks to her) and on Monday (7.8.2017) I'm presenting it - so keep fingers crossed as there is improtance in it not only for the project itself...



Day 1st

After getting laser on Wednesday, I posted here a short note which caused... Well a lot of posts here. Many thanks for them and for congratulations. In the evening that day I opened the package (as Jack advised me to keep the package to accomodate after transport - not that hard to wait as I was working on the project), but before opening I took a bike ride to the forest, it was hot day, so it was needed not only for me to rest but for laser to get ready. In the evening I took some unpacking pics for review in the future, explored the content... I ordered also optics kit (awesome, but I did not went through it yet) with 5 mW greenie, but Jack forgot to send it - I'll write him once I have some time. Not a big deal, even my current greenie pointer just died and I wanted to use it for presentation. Whatever I have 1 mW red presenter, which also remotely control computer and powerpoint presentation - so no problem, just the dot won't be DPSS produced... But that is not what you are waiting for – so I got to the laser finally. It was in nice gun case - higher quality, not the cheap one. The laser was sealed in antistatic bag and after getting in I saw THE BEAST (or THE BEAUTY). It is huge, heavy and of course fragile. But in case of life emergency you could even use to hit attacker in head and kill him, not sure if crystals would survive it, but whatever... The laser is powered by one 18650 coming positive (+) pole inwards (important as it does not have reverse polarity protection, nor any sign on the host), it is activated by standard 102 key in the tailcap – the key stays attached once turned on to on position. In deed it is not bad as it is safety feature since there is no LED indicating the laser is activated. Openning aperture is the same as known from Optotronics lasers. Also great feature I was worring the host not to have is knurling – the laser has it. And I did a first tests...

Awesome, this is something from the other world... I have no words. I did "glare" test, when dot hits closed corner of nearby building in our property. The point is to get the glare around to estimate the amount of light getting back to me to be captured by camera during laserpainting - it illuminated EVERYTHING brightly. Much brighter than my 3.5 W blue. Even the moon was shining the glare was enormous. Exactly this is what I missed during laserpainting. I did also several cigarette light up tests - simply instantly. Even the temperature was around 25 degrees Celsius and it is recommended not run it more than 30 seconds due to heat generated (30 seconds is the rest time - so 50 % duty cycle), I did not observed any temperature change on the host. Due to large and heavy metal of the heatsink it seems to be very effective. It surprised me a lot.

Short note - I think all aliens just made no fly zone around our planet and Solar system, as I shined it (very carefully) on sky. So, you are safe for now.

I also tried dazzler function - if you hold button pressed it starts to flash rapidly. Since it was quite late and I was tired, I did did not do the beam shots so far.



Day 2nd

Working day, I finished the model and presentation and did trial of the presentation I mentioned above (the paragraph which I recommended to skip if you were too curious for the beast). After I left my workplace I wanted to do ride in the forest and some beamshots – the laser is of enormous power and especially with these beam specs the energy density is incredible and it takes special precautions for using it for beamshots, so I wanted to think about how I’ll do it. It is definitely nothing for beginners. So I wanted to take a short ride and after that to prepare everything for the beam shots. Unfortunately when I came home our cat just „came“ to me and my sister and he was injured on his left front leg. Plans changed and we took him to vet. After we returned it was after a rain I did a short ride in the forest, to clear my head a bit and after return I pulled the laser out of its case again. As I was not able to prepare it for full outdoor beam shots I took it in our garden house, where I was able to get controlled conditions. I pointed it on white wall like 2.something meters away and took with my mobile what you can see below. The illumination was just a light bulb and THE BEAST. For comparsion of how big it is I left there my Zippo and some batts in various positions.



I also did further tests – especially burning to learn what I can afford with it. It burns everything in seconds! I did not took dot shot as I was worried about my mobile camera being damaged. At one moment my sister came to search for Druid (dog known from my Sky Beauty review), I had closed door in the garden house not to put him in danger. I think he should have profile on LPF as he is laser enthusiast as well as I mentioned it already. I just made my sister aware not to come close to openned part of garden house where the glare could be dangerous. She later came back and tol dme the laser shines in/on the house (in Czech it was not clear if it is in or on), but it illuminated the room, which window (!) was about 15 meters far. Can you imagine it? BTW she asked me if it was safe, I told her not to worry since square distance law apply from the dot.

As it was quite a hot day I was surprised that even I runned it a bit longer than the day before, the host was just getting a bit warm. Nothing compared to my Sky Beauty for example. Also I need to find out which temperature is ideal for her as I think I can get much more power from her under lower temperature. Let’s see… I’ll play with her, do some tests, take her for laserpainting and after that I can proceed with a review… Also I need to examine the dot more deeply.

And now…



Laser shots & beam shots

Here she is.





A view from top with my Zippo for size comparsion.





Pic from day two with various stuff around for size comparsion. Note the key.





Here we go! The beam is strong and thin. Blurry part in front is due to camera focus (all pics are taken with mobile, I was worried to damage my camera with such a strong laser). Note the glare and shadows around. All these pics used standard lightbulb and laser as illumination. Note shadows. I did not adjusted the pics just resized them.







Laser in operation.





Laser in operation again.







Here you can see what she does with a match after a few seconds. In deed the match is cut through, just the burned stuff holds it together.

​

 

[Alaskan]

Great, thank you. This puts my 800 mw 532 nm laser pointer to shame! Mine varies from 400 to 800 mw output, I bet this is far more stable with less variation of output power. I'd love to see a LPM graph over time

 

[NightExplorer96]

Awesome looking unit Radim! I'd bet it puts out one impressive beam into the night sky

-Alex

 

[Alaskan]

I'd love to see a night sky beam shot!

 

[Radim]

Guys, just note it was hot weather and I did not run it long for beam shots - I was worried not to make it too hot. So not only it likely did not reached peak yet, but I think it might go brighter at cooler temperatures. As it is usual with all others DPSS.

Edit: For night sky I have to prepare safe environment. Likely after weekend as I'm away from home till then.

 

[NightExplorer96]

Guys, just note it was hot weather and I did not run it long for beam shots - I was worried not to make it too hot. So not only it likely did not reached peak yet, but I think it might go brighter at cooler temperatures. As it is usual with all others DPSS.

Edit: For night sky I have to prepare safe environment. Likely after weekend as I'm away from home till then.

Yeah, be very careful about running 1.4W+ of 532 in a handheld for any length of time without a proper environment. Those types of powers are really much simpler & meant for lab use where one need not worry about overheating. Still, that is one cool handheld Radim :yh:

-Alex