CLOSED! Now Distributing ROUND 2!: THE "Skylaser" (laserBtB) groupbuy!

[InfinitusEquitas]

I didn't think the HL's are supposed to turn green? I guess my 520nm also is broken then

If you're talking about the LED, they do on 8 of the 10 lasers, so my assumption is yes, they are supposed to turn green when "armed".

 

[ZRaffleticket]

Huh... Well I don't mind, not worth sending it back for an ugly yellow-green light

 

[awillis2589]

None of this batchs laser led work for armed position. At least none of mine did. The last group buy both my hl532 did. Not a biggy though.

 

[Eradicator]

Got my lasers today. Heres a summary so far.

Tested the PL-650, came in at around 925mw on my bluefan LPM. The sticker does not appear to be blocking the hole at all and did not need to be cut, it is right up to the hole all the way around. It probably does hit over 1000mw on a faster LPM, but doesn't really compare to some others here, I'm gonna charge a different battery and test it again just to see.


Now the part that's got me pretty disappointed, tested my HL-532 300, I've only managed to get it to test over 200mw once. Usually around 170. BUT right now all I have is some "Juiced" brand 16340s to test with, and I can tell you, after just a 1 minute test run, that battery was VERY WARM. Much warmer than the laser itself. I have a couple AW IMR batteries on the way, so I am going to wait and see how it looks with a better battery.

The gift 532 pen tests at exactly 52mw, so basically a perfect on spec laser. No problem there.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Huh... Well I don't mind, not worth sending it back for an ugly yellow-green light

None of this batchs laser led work for armed position. At least none of mine did. The last group buy both my hl532 did. Not a biggy though.

I don't really care about it that much either, but it is notable IMO.

I also don't care at all about having three broken boxes.

What bugs me is the underspec 300mW HL532. The degrading 150mW HL532, having the wrong gift, underspec, and completely not as expected 650nm with the very thick beam, and the weird 445.

I really don't know what to make of the 70-80mW 445nm. Is the beam for the rest of you guys, the same as with the multimode m140 diodes? Is the dot round, or is it more of a dash?

 

[ZRaffleticket]

Oh, also IE can you post a picture of the unfocused spot of the HL-460? I've had two of the SM blues. One died of mysterious causes and the other I murdered with too much current.

The spot had a familiar thick "line" in the middle however it wasn't like an M140 in my opinion. The green diodes are much like the SM blues, so I'm expecting your picture to be a blue, less dusty one of this v

Also, how's divergence on it?

Edit: but yes, the diodes sorta resemble the multimodes in their beams, one angle is wide and another is thin.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Sure, here you go, taken with my phone, so quality is kind of shitty...

The center strip is not nearly as bright as my phone makes it appear, but it is noticeably brighter versus the rest.

Just did some comparisons. The dot does not appear to be the same at a distance, vs the m140. It is certainly much much smaller, and the laser is of a lower divergence.

I guess what's throwing me, is that the beam does still appear to more of a dash, as you see the center in the pictures, as opposed to round.

Also this is among the lowest power ~445-450nm laser I've seen.

 

[awillis2589]

My HL460 has a nice tight beam and a great small dot. it's much different then any 445 i've ever seen.

 

[ZRaffleticket]

It's a little tough to tell with those but I'm not seeing anything that would tell me it's MM there, that's just how the osram diodes look unfocused. At least they don't have the wings like the LPC's do.

But the divergence is still pretty good on it right? Not too much difference between slow and fast axis?

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Yeah, seeing it side by side with an m140, it's definitely not the same. There is some difference on the aixiz, but not as extreme.

It's the dot/beam shape that's really throwing me off. The laser is a bit underspec, 10mW or so, running it on LPM for two minutes now, but nothing outside the ordinary. It hit 90-95mW on four tests, so while it's not overspec, it is on spec... that's something.

Edit: I went a bit OCD tonight...

Batteries;

First my "Good" go to batteries;

Protected 18650;

4x18650 Keeppower Protected 3400mAh
6x18650 Fast Tech Protected 3400mAh
4x18650 Fast Tech Protected 3100mAh
2x18650 Obtronic Protected 2900mAh
1x18650 AW Protected 2200mAh

Uprotected 18650;

3x18650 Panasonic 3400mAh ICR
5x18650 Panasonic 2200mAh IMR
2x18650 AW Red 1600mAh IMR
4x18650 AW Red 2000mAh IMR
1x18650 Samsung 2200mAh ICR
1x18650 MNKE 1500mAh IMR

The rest;

10x16340 EH 700mAh IMR (From Yobresal)
3x16340 AW 550mAh Red IMR
3x18350 AW 700mAh Red IMR
2x18350 Keeppower Protected 900mAh
4x16340 Keeppower Protected 700mAh
3x14500 AW Protected 750mAh
4x14500 Orbtronic Protected 840mAh
6x14500 Keeppower Protected 800mAh

My "Meh" Battery collection consists of the following;

10x18650
11x16340
4x14500
6x10440
1x18500

With the exception of the "meh" portion, all are stored in plastic battery containers. The "meh" batteries inhabit boxes from my crelant lights :tinfoil:

 

[Dapcnut]

Got my HL520 today, Putting out a steady 50mW

Beam hits threads on one side resulting in a fair amount of splash.

A few quick beam Pics.

More Pics and Review this weekend when I get Time.

 

[pschlosser]

Blast it, I missed the FedEx guy by 15min, today. Sigh.

 

[andrewProgrammer]

HL405- 500mW

My HL405 does not have a green light for the armed position. My only laser from the groupbuys that has the indicator is my HL532. The thing I love about this violet laser is how well shaped the beam is. It's a perfect circle with minimal divergence (exactly what we're here for, right?).

HL460- 100mW

My HL460 has the same bar shape as yours. The divergence is superb, regardless. It has a near-even spread for both axes, too, making it much better than the multimode 445's where you go out ten yards to find a beam the size of a flat baseball. I tried really hard, and I couldn't capture the color difference or beam shape very well, but here's a picture with a 1W 445nm on the left and the HL460 on the right.

Lazerer RIFLE and Skylaser HL460 (WARNING: LARGE PICTURE)

The only thing that concerns me, though, is the interference pattern that I'm seeing. I'll try to capture it, but my camera is having a hard time with this intense blue.

 

[chance72]

Holy Shirttails, Andrew!

 

[andrewProgrammer]

Holy Shirttails, Andrew!

Is this because I didn't take the time to resize the picture? All my other pictures I've posted have been scaled down to 800x600px, but I left this one untouched for better detail. I tried again to capture the interference patterns, but I failed. I can get some on the very edges of the circle, but that's it, none of the ones that go straight across the middle. I'm charging my IMRs, so that I can LPM my HL460 tomorrow. I'm going to test it chilled, so hopefully it hits 100mW. The only laser I own that I'm truly disappointed in, though, is my O-Like 650nm. It claims to be 250mW, but it barely hit over 150mW. It sucks.

I am satisfied with the way this groupbuy turned out for me. I got two lasers - one that meets and one that exceeds specification. I can't wait for the next one! Thanks, Offroad and Kevin!

 

[Pman]

Feel for you all with the issues. Hoping to get mine resolved soon.
Biggest issue for me at the moment is what happened to my second batch. Hoping for some good news on this. I could really use it.
Couldn't sleep past 1:30 (migraine issue) and will be leaving in a couple hours to gring my wife to the hospital once again like last Tuesday for another different exploratory procedure. The procedure isn't "dangerous" really other than mild sedative and it won't take long but I adore my wife and it's a million times harder on me than if it was me they were messing with.

A few pics of the pen lasers I've modded just for giggles. All are adjustable focus except the gold and green one and many are cut down to run on a single 10440. I love to mess with 5 dollar overspec pens Think I mentioned somewhere that haven't had a single issue yet running the 10440 in these units.
The chrome and cherry red painted pens are from O-like. The Chrome one is untouched and is just there as a reference for the one I painted red and they both come with adjustable focus and only cost 12 bucks apiece. Haven't tried them yet on a single 10440 with spacer but they put out 124 and 137mw (650nm) with regular aaa lithiums. Rated at 100mw on their site. Have a very nice "weight" to them.
Going to change the top row 88mw one with the gold cap and black stripe as the gold doesn't quite go with the chrome cap well enough. Edit... Just painted the gold cap purple along with the chrome except for the button.
All of the 405's have some glow paint in the caps. You can see which ones if you look close.