Before heading into collecting labbies....

[NightExplorer96]

Well,

My birthday is next week(November 4th) and my 100mW 532nm CNI labby should be here tomorrow, so I consider it a birthday gift to myself :beer:

One tip I would like to give, which im sure most of you know is that labbies are a whooooole other ballpark in terms of price. Sure, some diodes are expensive, and even argons can be several hundreds but many labbies won't become realistic until you hit the $1,000's. My first labby, a 655 100mW red was $260, and the coming in 532 is $360. Next planned is a 100mW of 447 which runs $450, and yellows cost $1,000's+ for a few 10's of mW's!

Im sure this is just repeating what many know, but if anyone is interested in collecting new labbies(like me), ya better have some Franklin's in the bank

-Alex

 

[Ricker]

Well,

My birthday is next week(November 4th) and my 100mW 532nm CNI labby should be here tomorrow, so I consider it a birthday gift to myself :beer:

One tip I would like to give, which im sure most of you know is that labbies are a whooooole other ballpark in terms of price. Sure, some diodes are expensive, and even argons can be several hundreds but many labbies won't become realistic until you hit the $1,000's. My first labby, a 655 100mW red was $260, and the coming in 532 is $360. Next planned is a 100mW of 447 which runs $450, and yellows cost $1,000's+ for a few 10's of mW's!

Im sure this is just repeating what many know, but if anyone is interested in collecting new labbies(like me), ya better have some Franklin's in the bank

-Alex

My goodness that's a whole other world! Congratulations on the transition, Alex! It is mostly due to the stability and extremely long duty cycle correct? Must be great for lab testing! (Yes, I know they are called lab lasers.)

 

[NightExplorer96]

My goodness that's a whole other world! Congratulations on the transition, Alex! It is mostly due to the stability and extremely long duty cycle correct? Must be great for lab testing! (Yes, I know they are called lab lasers.)

Hey Ricker,

Thanks for the kind words! Well....yes, in a way. Lab Lasers are more expensive since they aren't as simple as regular handheld/pointer lasers(that while still great) are simply not as reliable as lab systems.

The pro's with pointer and handhelds are the easier portability, setting up is as simple as popping in some batteries and of course the cheaper price. The con's are duty cycles, lower stability and wavelength's available. What I mean by the last is that many wavelength's aren't available in handheld form(i.e 500.8nm/491nm/607nm/457nm/355nm etc...) They are technically possible but would be darn expensive(which if you can afford them dosen't really matter) and would have a horrible operation and would kill those batteries quickly.

Labbies on the other hand, have unlimited duty cycles, great stability(my red for example somehow is 0.485% of power change, but it depends on the stability requested) and are great if you need lasers to experiment or perform scientific work due to their greater overall performance. Of course, this comes at a cost. Labbies are quite heavier then handhelds, the head and PSU are separate so hooking everything up take a little longer(if it isn't already) and because of such cost in some cases $100's more then getting the equivalent of a pointer.

Im brand new in this field, but am loving it so far! Hopefully one day I'll be the labby guy of LPF

-Alex

 

[Ricker]

Hey Ricker,

Thanks for the kind words! Well....yes, in a way. Lab Lasers are more expensive since they aren't as simple as regular handheld/pointer lasers(that while still great) are simply not as reliable as lab systems.

The pro's with pointer and handhelds are the easier portability, setting up is as simple as popping in some batteries and of course the cheaper price. The con's are duty cycles, lower stability and wavelength's available. What I mean by the last is that many wavelength's aren't available in handheld form(i.e 500.8nm/491nm/607nm/457nm/355nm etc...) They are technically possible but would be darn expensive(which if you can afford them dosen't really matter) and would have a horrible operation and would kill those batteries quickly.

Labbies on the other hand, have unlimited duty cycles, great stability(my red for example somehow is 0.485% of power change, but it depends on the stability requested) and are great if you need lasers to experiment or perform scientific work due to their greater overall performance. Of course, this comes at a cost. Labbies are quite heavier then handhelds, the head and PSU are separate so hooking everything up take a little longer(if it isn't already) and because of such cost in some cases $100's more then getting the equivalent of a pointer.

Im brand new in this field, but am loving it so far! Hopefully one day I'll be the labby guy of LPF

-Alex

Thank you so much for that information! Seems as though that's a whole other field of lasers to a more "advanced" enthusiast! I don't have the work space for such a setup, I'm happy you're excited about switching gears! :san:

 

[NightExplorer96]

Thank you so much for that information! Seems as though that's a whole other field of lasers to a more "advanced" enthusiast! I don't have the work space for such a setup, I'm happy you're excited about switching gears! :san:

Your welcome haha. Labbies do take up a loooot of space, already 2 lab laser systems take up half a table right by me

-Alex

 

[Blarg King]

Unless your a lucky individual such as myself who got one of those 473nm lab lasers for a mere 80$

Though to be fair, the divergence on them is arguably the worst I've ever seen. But unlimited duty cycle is nice. Makes a pleasant aqua blue ambience.

 

[GSS]

Thanks Lehap, you answered alot of the questions ive been wanting to ask about the wanting of a labby. (its like you read my mind) I knew they are mostly for experments but just the unlimited? duty cycle has to be the first want. By the way good job keeping your labby bends in check

 

[NightExplorer96]

Thanks Lehap, you answered alot of the questions ive been wanting to ask about the wanting of a labby. (its like you read my mind) I knew they are mostly for experments but just the unlimited? duty cycle has to be the first want. By the way good job keeping your labby bends in check

Your welcome! Yes, the unlimited duty cycle is what was the biggest appeal to me

-Alex

 

[Gabe]

Labbies are expensive, that's why I made my first lobby a second hand. For a 45mW 473, I would much rather pay $200 used rather than the many thousands for a new one. Browse the BST section of the forum, good deals pop up all the time

 

[diachi]

Your welcome haha. Labbies do take up a loooot of space, already 2 lab laser systems take up half a table right by me

-Alex

Be glad you didn't choose to get into gas lasers .

 

[Machro]

These are a waste of money if youre just a hobbyist and do not use these for any scientific purposes imo

Building your own is waaaaay cheaper (especially the wavelenghts you already bought), you learn a lot of stuff, acquire new skills, and you'll be proud of what you made

just my 2 cents

 

[GSS]

Do labbys burn better at lower powers compared to a same powered pointer because of the better stability?

 

[Pman]

Everyone is different and that's a good thing. I only have one unit that you might possibly call a labby although I wouldn't call it that. It's the O-Like RG to yellow unit that I just did a quick review (or maybe more like an informational post) on and I have run it for just about 1/2 hour at the longest. Interesting to mess around with and the color is closer to yellow than a 589nm which is more of a golden color or golden with a hint of orange.
I do wish I would have snatched up that other CNI 532nm <5mW from you before someone else did Alex but at least I got the one off 520nm. So, Alex getting into lab units was an advantage to me
I don't own any gas units so have no idea what the pull on that is (the one you gave me was tested and found to be at the end of its life cycle) which is perfectly fine as we didn't even know if it worked anyways.
I really hope you enjoy some more powerful units now so you can see some nice beams without smoke. One thing I ended up with by DTR releasing his 510 adapter units is a whole bunch of smoke making units so I could just blow a little bit in the beam paths without having to fire up a smoke machine. I don't take it into my lungs but just my mouth.

 

[diachi]

These are a waste of money if youre just a hobbyist and do not use these for any scientific purposes imo

Building your own is waaaaay cheaper (especially the wavelenghts you already bought), you learn a lot of stuff, acquire new skills, and you'll be proud of what you made

just my 2 cents

That's like saying a Porsche is a waste of money if you just use it as a daily driver and don't go racing in it. To each their own.

Even if Alex isn't using the labbys for science, at least now he has the option to experiment with things that pointers wouldn't allow.

Again, to each their own.

Do labbys burn better at lower powers compared to a same powered pointer because of the better stability?

No, the stability is a measure of how much the power fluctuates over a given period of time. So a 100mW labby may fluctuate from 100 to 100.5mW in the space of a minute. A 100mW pointer at the same wavelength may fluctuate from 100mW to 95mW in that same minute. It doesn't affect burning capability but there are many applications where good stability and a long duty cycle are needed or at least useful.

 

[NightExplorer96]

@Pman

Yikes, well at least you got a free HeNe haha

@diachi

Yep, pretty much summed it up on stability. I enjoy lab lasers not so much due to their stability, but their unlimited duty cycle, which is a huge plus for me

-Alex

 

[Machro]

That's like saying a Porsche is a waste of money if you just use it as a daily driver and don't go racing in it. To each their own.

Even if Alex isn't using the labbys for science, at least now he has the option to experiment with things that pointers wouldn't allow.

Again, to each their own.

Comparing lasers to cars would be wrong at this point

Its just not like you have to spent a few hundred dollars to buy at decent laser (or building one). Sometimes quality can be overstated easily.

Just want to prevent people throwing away lots of money for things they dont need ...