Re: Buying Wicked Lasers Evo or Techlasers Crossfi
hey krk, welcome to LPF
i'd definitely avoid wicked lasers and their "affiliate" techlasers if i were you - starting with WL, they are overpriced and often have serious quality problems. i've heard many people with their really high power lasers talk about them being below the stated power and faulty, and my own wicked lasers purchase, a 15mW executive, started mode switching, flickering, and then completely died, all within 14 hours of arrival at my house and with relatively light usage. i sent it back for a replacement, and got back a laser which while not mode hopping, is incredibly unstable in terms of brightness (and thus, i guess, power output), goes dim-bright-dim-bright-dim-bright all the time. plus, wicked laser's "laser community" is a mysterious place, where all reports of broken WL lasers or criticism of their products magically vanishes into thin air, and competitor's names must never be spoken!
as for techlasers, they've done nothing but lie since they started up. first they claimed to be the official distributor of CNI lasers - untrue, as laserglow are the official distributers. they also claimed prominently on their website to sell "all laserglow, optotronics and dragon lasers" - though i'm pretty sure it's been proven that they're selling cheap counterfeit clones, and funnily enough that claim is now removed from their website. their website is full of crap in general, for example their orange laser page states:
Synthesized from two separate laser beams, a 1064nm and a 1342nm laser beam, the Xerex orange laser is a landmark in Laser technology with its unprecedented use of micro diodes to produce a vivid 593.5nm orange beam. It is truly a magnificent rare new technology that’s a must have for laser pointer collectors.
which makes it sound like they think they invented orange lasers or something. unprecedented use of micro diodes my bum. then there's this from their blue laser page:
The Astro blue laser pointer offers a stunning sapphire color beam with increased brightness and power. The solid aluminum sturdy barrel is equipped with revolutionary heat sink and cooling technology; it comes with 100% duty cycle meaning; it can be turned on indefinitely without over heating. With the Astro blue laser, you can do what no other blue lasers can; project a clearly visible blue beam across the night sky.
no other blue laser can... produce a blue beam? then what the hell do all the other blue lasers make, yellow beams??? or do other blue lasers just mysteriously fail when pointed at the sky? i have no idea what they were smoking when they wrote that. they also seem to think they invented heatsinks. revolutionary! sorry, but i find those quotes simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. like their beam specs for one of their IR lasers, which says output is between 1mW and 400mW.... that's an incredibly vague number! i guess it means noone can complain when they get a 1mW IR laser for a stupidly high price.... so, yeah, i hope that shows why you should really avoid those companies.
there's far better alternatives, for example, nova lasers (
www.novalasers.com) sell the very nice, small, and cheap X series, and the slightly more expensive but better heatsinked alpha series, as well as the high powered nova series. i know i love my X85, performs great, and with nova you tend to get *more* power than you paid for. actually, with most reputable handheld laser companies you tend to get more than you paid for... for really high powered lasers, optotronics (
www.optotronics.com) and laserglow (
www.laserglow.com) have great reputations. the optotronics RPL is a nice rechargable laser, with models up to about 350mW (which is actually rated 356-370mW) and adjustable output if you choose the adjustable tailcap, everyone i've seen review an RPL seems to love it and i'm saving for my own RPL-300
the laserglow aires looks like a nice little laser to me, and most people with a laserglow hercules seem incredibly happy with it (even if they do joke that with it's size it could be used as a baseball bat, but i guess that fits the name!) - it goes up to a 400mW model by standard, and laserglow also offer even higher rated ones when they're available. so yeah, there's better and cheaper alternatives out there
whatever laser you do get in the end though, i hope you're happy with it! and i hope this info is helpful to you
