mhakali
0
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2009
- Messages
- 371
- Points
- 28
Hello!
I stumbled across a new laser toy and thought that I would make a review. The item this time is a 200mW "Flashlight" style green laser for $89.99 retail.
General properties
Pointer construct / build quality
The pointer is made of some medium weight metal. Probably aluminum. It has a black finish. And you can split it into 3 parts and remove the top hat:
Top view:
Removing the hat shows the heatsink:
They have glued together the pointer outer shell and heatsink in between.
All in all it feels good to hold. Very firm. Does not feel cheap at all. A downside is the power switch which is actually glitching. Sometimes you have to unscrew it and re-adjust to be able to use it from time to time. It's btw a push button on/off clicking. Not a momentary on button. I prefer the momentary buttons personally.
Beam quality
The beam is fairly tight. Not like those FP burners "200mW" pens which has an insane (in a bad way) focus. This has a stable dot size on longer distances. I did not calculate the Mrad for this one.
I seem to have a small smudge on the lens which I may try to remove later on. It shows as an additional green circle next to the beam dot:
It otherwise seems perfectly round.
Power output
Attached the LaserBee on the serial port and dumping raw data at 9600bps 8N1 and it started to give me readings. The LaserBee seems to sample output every 0.1s and prints it as "<value>,<value>" (where both values are the same). Does anyone know what the 2nd column stand for? It's not the max value as it does decrease.
Anyhow, assembled data over ~90s and got the following graph:
The peak is at around 130mW. But I like that it keeps stable around 115-119mW. However not the promised 200mW spec pointers.
Beam shots
Last section, for some beam shots.
All in all recommendation?
I would probably not recommend this pointer. For the price tag I feel that it has too many flaws. Aside from the 130mW peak the on/off button glitches and the lens has smudges.
On the positive sides the power output is stable. Build quality is fairly good and both the power button and lens can be fixed with a bit of handy crafting.
I stumbled across a new laser toy and thought that I would make a review. The item this time is a 200mW "Flashlight" style green laser for $89.99 retail.
General properties
- Power output: 200mW
- Wavelength: 532nm +-10nm
- Steady pointer black metal build
- Sectionable
- Uses 1x 18650 and includes charger (US type plug)
Pointer construct / build quality
The pointer is made of some medium weight metal. Probably aluminum. It has a black finish. And you can split it into 3 parts and remove the top hat:
Top view:
Removing the hat shows the heatsink:
They have glued together the pointer outer shell and heatsink in between.
All in all it feels good to hold. Very firm. Does not feel cheap at all. A downside is the power switch which is actually glitching. Sometimes you have to unscrew it and re-adjust to be able to use it from time to time. It's btw a push button on/off clicking. Not a momentary on button. I prefer the momentary buttons personally.
Beam quality
The beam is fairly tight. Not like those FP burners "200mW" pens which has an insane (in a bad way) focus. This has a stable dot size on longer distances. I did not calculate the Mrad for this one.
I seem to have a small smudge on the lens which I may try to remove later on. It shows as an additional green circle next to the beam dot:
It otherwise seems perfectly round.
Power output
Attached the LaserBee on the serial port and dumping raw data at 9600bps 8N1 and it started to give me readings. The LaserBee seems to sample output every 0.1s and prints it as "<value>,<value>" (where both values are the same). Does anyone know what the 2nd column stand for? It's not the max value as it does decrease.
Anyhow, assembled data over ~90s and got the following graph:
The peak is at around 130mW. But I like that it keeps stable around 115-119mW. However not the promised 200mW spec pointers.
Beam shots
Last section, for some beam shots.
All in all recommendation?
I would probably not recommend this pointer. For the price tag I feel that it has too many flaws. Aside from the 130mW peak the on/off button glitches and the lens has smudges.
On the positive sides the power output is stable. Build quality is fairly good and both the power button and lens can be fixed with a bit of handy crafting.
