Cni glp-594 yellow

[Hemlock_Mike]

I'm finally getting to the review of the CNI Yellow pointer I got in one of Glenn's GB's. It's been a couple months but this is a stable laser considering the technology needed to produce this beam.

The laser arrived in the normal CNI box with no cells expected. It appears like most of their pointers with gloss black paint and gold colored caps.

This is a GLP-594nM Yellow pointer rated for 0.6 to 2.0 mW output. Powered with e2 lithium cells, the output shows some instability as expected with this newer technology. The beam appears to remain TEM00 while on and over an ambient temperature range of 62 to 80 Degrees F. It quickly exceeds the rated power peaking at about one minute at 14 mW ! It then drops to a mostly stable output of 8 mW -- well above the rated power.

The beam divergence seems large and I have not tried to adjust it. At 3' the beam measures 0.09" -- not bad. But at 20', I measure 0.31" giving 2.89 mRad divergence. This seems large but also provides a large visual dot across the room. I have not tried a beam expander on this yet to see if it can be reduced.
The color appears more gold than yellow but I personally like that color as do most people who see the beam.

Overall, this is a good little laser for those who want a unique color for visual appearance. It is not a pop and burn laser.

HMike

 

[Ears and Eggs]

Holy crap! 14mW peak! Amazing! Even my Rigel-5 from LaserGlow doesn't appear to go up that far. Glad to see that it appears the technology for the yellow laser pointer is advancing though, a few years back getting one that put out only yellow would be extremely rare. Now we are getting some great freak peaks. I would like to test my Rigel on a different power meter though, because the LPM1 was not designed for 594 so my results could be off by a fair amount. What meter did you use for it?

 

[yobresal]

Those readings are way high for a 594nm pen! That is amazing.

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

I'm using a Scientech 362 analog meter. I use this because it works so well with my old Heath chart recorder. This meter measures within 5% of my Scientech 365 digital meter. Well within Hobby specs. The output can dance quite a bit and I damped the chart recorder to provide a more average graph.
The laser does need to warm up a bit to peak and then drops like the chart shows.

HMike

 

[Ears and Eggs]

I guess I need to get those eneloops out of there and put in some e2 lithiums. I found with my old yellow that it was brightest when it was around 30 degrees Celsius with high humidity. Gonna be hard to replicate those conditions in Ottawa in December. lol Hoping mine might be capable of at least 10mW under perfect conditions. I was wondering if I could use the 635nm and 532nm settings on my LPM1 and then split the difference maybe to get a rough idea of what my yellow is putting out. Shame they didn't include a 594nm setting.

 

[StardustSprinkles]

Beamshots pleeease. (if possible)

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

2007R ---

You think it's bad there? We are below zero tonight. My yello is tested at shirt pocket temp 88 Deg F by IR meter!!!! The room temp is about 65 Deg. This laser can be wild but is more stable after a couple months of use. My new BLUE from CNI is a different story :-(
That review might be different

HMike

 

[Ears and Eggs]

2007R ---

You think it's bad there? We are below zero tonight. My yello is tested at shirt pocket temp 88 Deg F by IR meter!!!! The room temp is about 65 Deg. This laser can be wild but is more stable after a couple months of use. My new BLUE from CNI is a different story :-(
That review might be different

HMike

Yikes that's bad DPSS laser weather. I had an incident with my first yellow pointer were I accidentally left it on the front seat of our car which was parked in the driveway overnight. The temperature dropped to under -30 and I was really scared it was broken. Took a few hours of warming before it would even light up again. I found that it usually stopped lasing when it dropped under -5. Going to be careful with my new one and not let it get too cold. Which blue did you get from CNI? Was it the GLP, PGL or a labby?

 

[StardustSprinkles]

Do ya have any other 473nm blues? Are they always unstable, I guess, is what I'm asking?

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

My Blue is a GLP-473 nM pointer rated 5 mW.
We are all so used to having stable greens after 3 years of production. Making yellow and blue with DPSS is a new technology and still somewhat on weak legs.
My yellow has improved over the last 2 months and I don't know why. The blue I have seems to have a very narrow TEM00 operating range. There are a lot of variables yet in production of blue. My Blue labbie is TEC controled and has no problem. Pointers are a different animal.

HMike

 

[Ears and Eggs]

I have owned two GLP-473s in my time. One was a 2mW and the other a 5mW. I have to admit I am not all that impressed with the GLP-473. Both had serious mode issues, often with quite visible beam splitting and warping, although they are only advertised as 'near TEM00'. I found that if I left it on for about 5 minutes that the mode issues would often go away and it would stabilize at TEM00 though. Personally I would prefer constant wave to pulsed operation, but that not a big deal. What bugs me the most though is that I find the actually pen body of the GLP-473 quite unattractive compared to the GLP green/yellow and the button on the 473 rattles and feels kind of cheaper than what I would expect for a several hundred dollar laser. IMO it would be much better if CNI used the GLP green/yellow body for all it's pens, but i guess it is a size issue with the 473 module.

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

2007R ---

You got it. YES. Mine is the same! As it warms up, the beam magically combines into one and the power JUMPS. Then ---- - -- - - - -it starts to divide again like an ameboa (sp) and the power drops. This over a narrow temp range.
The pulsed power is OK with me too as it appears to be about 80% on.

HMike

 

[scopeguy20]

Thanks for the Good review Mike! I can't always promise the output will be that high, but now I'm looking forward to the 589 nm units! I will be ordering a much faster GB for GLP's again in just a few days. Also, I now order any Green PGL III's seperately, so they don't slow everything down, that was the big hold up last time. Thanks All! -Glenn

 

[StardustSprinkles]

Ya, I have stability issues with my current 150mW green, if it's cold in the morning the beam is two pieces, I thought it was broken because my 5mW green and violet have never done that.

 

[john_lawson]

sweet pen mike i like those cni hosts too by the way

 

[nikokapo]

Added to RT!