Anyone familiar with these "picosecond laser pens" ?

[Blarg King]

Hello all,

Lately on Ebay and Wish I've been getting suggested a lot of these "picosecond laser pens" that are supposedly for tattoo removal, they all seem to be made by this company "Neatcell". I've tried looking up how they work but mostly all I can find are reviews by people swearing they work (however they read like paid advertisements so I don't fully believe them). This is the manufacturer website, I see them on various online places ranging from 50-100$.

I did find this video of one being used, and at least to me it looks and sounds very similar to the bigger YAG lasers that are traditionally used for tattoo removal. Could this pen have a tiny YAG laser inside it? Seems doubtful to me but thats why I'm making this post because I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how these work.

Honestly for 50$ I might have to risk it and buy one to take apart. Curious what others on here think might be going on.

 

[paul1598419]

Yeah, that is likely a YAG laser. Where did you get $50 from? I linked your sales site and it shows $89.00 for it. Don't know if it is Q switched, but that seems unlikely.

 

[Blarg King]

Seen them for 50$ on Wish and Ebay from time to time.

 

[18LJ]

If theyre suggesting a pointer like pen that is qswitched and does picosecond pulses that are strong enough to destroy subdermal tattoo pigments powered by any type of commonly available battery then i say that is complete bs. U could maybe get 10-20 pulses from a fully charged 18650 before your battery overheats or drains. If it is a pen style attachment that connects to a machine yhat supplies power then thats fairly plausible. They sell those on ebay all over they usually have a umbilical that connects to a fiber providing the yag pulses or a power cord plugs to the pen and the crystals and optics are contained in the pen. ::EDIT:: i didnt look too closely at the pic and just assumed it was battery powered but i see the power cord now. I think probably theres a small pulsed yag thats probabky squeezed in there, tho the professional units that are normally used by dermatologist offices are a small cart on wheels that have fiber optics attached to a pen applicator. If u got 50 bucks to burn go and do a teardown just make sure to take picsbof the goodies that arevin the guts of it and share please lol

 

[paul1598419]

I believe the "Piicosecond" is just a name they gave this thing.

 

[LaserMicroscope]

I don't mess with those lasers for one simple reason: capacitors. I HATE working with capacitors, and I could never trust high powered caps in a cheaply made product.

 

[Cyparagon]

The device at the website and the device in the demonstration are not the same. There is no way to get enough power from that silly 5W plug pack. At the power/rep rate, the device in the vid is using several hundred watts and is going to require water cooling of some sort.

You might be able to get a few pulses from a 18650, but the cooling just isn't there in pen-form. The marketing is ALL OVER the place. Some listings say "Safer RF technology" , or "ion damage function" . For a moment, I was thinking it might just be flashlamp based, since a high energy light pulse doesn't need to be coherent to do its thing, it's just more controlled.

I was about to buy one and find out... Then I saw this. Sorry to disappoint. It's just a ~1W blue with nonsense microcontroller timing the "dosage"