Alternative to WL's Arctic?

[Fonduman]

I love the $$$ of dragon's blue spartan

though I hate the fact it looks like a flashlight... I prefer the straight-sided tubes like my CNI and old (dead) Pulsar had...

Though for that cost, one cant really complain... (of course what does it take to get the 1W output? fresh lithium batteries with 1 use or less before it drops?)

depends what the driver is set to. on my build with boostdrive, it starts 900mW then slowly crawls down, about a mW a second. then upon turning it back on after a cooldown period, it starts again but starting maybe at 890mW. doesnt eat batteries as fast as you would think.

 

[Ashton]

Not as nice as I'd like to see, but for that price still impressive (sorry for my skepticism, but I had a 200mw red that pulsed 200mw then after a few seconds dropped to 150mw. which was still good, but not what was implied in the advertisement)

 

[charliebruce]

Quick point: You should definitely get a better lens than the stock Acrylic one - a 445nm laser will tear through it and degrade it very fast, potentially damaging the diode too.

 

[Astrogoth]

Thanks, will do. So much to learn before I can get my feet wet.