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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Ebay "Thor" Laser

Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
320
Points
28
I had some excess monies, so I decided to test out some ebay laser sellers. I was just assuming that I would get my money back via “item was counterfeit” cases if I had any trouble.

Thor 445nm 450nm Adjustable Military Power Blue Laser Pointer Torch Burn Match | eBay
Here’s the item. I bid $60 where it costs $69 as the buy it now price. Suspiciously cheap. The description makes the usual ridiculous claims that it should be used for presentations, by museum tour guides, and at bars. Because beer tastes better if it can blind you.

I asked the guy
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So with that statement on record, I bought. It took from 29 April to 15 May to arrive, by which time the school semester had ended and I had totally forgotten about my order because I was too busy eating salads to try to lose the body weight comprised entirely of McChickens.

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It was in a large bubble mailer in a white box, and that’s ok as long as it works. The assembly is a little bigger than a DL Spartan, and about twice as long as an Altoids tin. And the threads are smooth. Like reaaaally smooth. Like real ice cream, not that cheap stuff that’s all low-fat even though it’s not advertised as low-fat, but it’s got no texture and when it melts it turns into a bubbling soup of sad, but a premium ice cream like Ben and Jerry’s.

I cut the batteries out of their plastic and installed them and I had never seen a more powerful blue beam before (I’d only had 1.2w). I was amazed. It can be focused by turning the front shroud, which by the way cannot be fully unscrewed. Not science, but it looked to me like 450nm, not 445nm. The beam quality was like tiger stripes. Like dude, do you cut your own lenses? A quick measure on a Radiant x4 showed over 1400mw. Fantastic.
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Then I hooked it up to an 8.3v power supply and did the meter.
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The casing near where you’d expect the laser to reside gets pretty warm, so I wouldn’t run it over 1.5 minutes without 3 minutes rest. But it only consumes 1.0A.

Hold the phones, after I did the meters, I noticed a lot of hazing around the dot. I took the batteries out and inspected the lens to see what’s up. The lens was foggy and the casing did not look to me like anodized metal. Seriously? Acrylic?
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I then proceeded to try and rack up some runtime to see if the lens would get hot and change in any way. And it did. The tiger stripes went away for a minute, just vanishing before my eyes. But there was still a haze.
I carefully, but not really, unscrewed the lens with a galvanized nail revealing a lens nut that looked like melty macaroni and cheese.
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I gently twisted a moist q-tip on the laser diode window since I had nothing to lose, and replaced the lens with my own cheap Chinese 3 element lens with JB Weld on the threads. I would have used that "98%" lens in the picture, but it was scratched. I was using a wooden toothpick to screw the lens in until it got stiff, then I had to switch to the metal nail; It’s good to keep the pressure angle away from the glass. I focused it to infinity across my yard, and metered.
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Now it’s a pretty ok laser. And 1300mw isn’t bad for $65.50
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Joined
Dec 6, 2013
Messages
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Yeah those kind of hosts they use cheap lenses etc, thats why it only cost 60$ but i guess its not bad for the price, myself i would pay the double to get the good stuff and not the mass produced even if its overspec which usually all 445 should be its still not thebest quality inside..

haha i like the applications they recommend, like anyone is gonna shine a 1w laser at presentations and screens and risk blinding everyone it just shows how clueless and irresponsible they are dont they know lasers that can burn are nything to be used in public at all ? thats why laser reputation is so bad now because anyone can buy a cheap laser from ebay and they dont even take it serious the amount of power of the lasers theysell.

Application:

1. Point at targets,
2. Lecture on the evening sky,
3. Instructing pie charts in the boardroom,
4. Project screens, video monitors and inspection,
5. Presentations, museum and guides.
6. Gallery guides, Building field, Mining field, Business person, Conference Speaker, Bars, KTV, Clubs, Concert site
 
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Joined
Feb 24, 2014
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I have one of these host but in 200 mw of 532 nm they are a knock off of WL so its really no surprise that they have a cheap lens. But Sixty some bucks for a 1 plus watt 4445/450 nm is not to shabby. Just the parts to build it your self cost that much. have some rep for finding a gem for that much
 
Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
320
Points
28
I have one of these host but in 200 mw of 532 nm they are a knock off of WL so its really no surprise that they have a cheap lens. But Sixty some bucks for a 1 plus watt 4445/450 nm is not to shabby. Just the parts to build it your self cost that much. have some rep for finding a gem for that much

^.^ Thank you
 
Joined
Dec 11, 2014
Messages
929
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I have one of these host but in 200 mw of 532 nm they are a knock off of WL so its really no surprise that they have a cheap lens. But Sixty some bucks for a 1 plus watt 4445/450 nm is not to shabby. Just the parts to build it your self cost that much. have some rep for finding a gem for that much

I can't seem to find this "4445nm" laser you speak of. If it were frequency octupled it would produce light almost exactly at the human visible peak! :crackup:

Seriously though, great find for such a low price, even if it is a WL knockoff. :D
 
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
Messages
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I can't seem to find this "4445nm" laser you speak of. If it were frequency octupled it would produce light almost exactly at the human visible peak! :crackup:

Seriously though, great find for such a low price, even if it is a WL knockoff. :D

lol that was a major typo
 
Joined
May 18, 2015
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I guess that is a pretty decent amount of power for price, but exactly what everyone would want. Who knows, it might die in a month.
 
Joined
Feb 5, 2008
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"Carefully but not really"

LOL, you got an awesome writing style. Should do more reviews :D

Ontopic, Well you can't really miss much with 445nm diodes - they only go as low as 1W in declared output, so it's really the guaranteed minimum power, no matter what the laser costs (as long as it actually has a 445nm diode).

Only lower power blue diodes would be 450nm single-mode diodes, at around 100+mW, but they actually cost as much, if not more than their higher-power brethren.

Same thing with eBay blu-rays (405nm, violets), no matter how much you try, you can't actually find a pointer below 50mW output (no matter the 5mW declarations) because common diodes do not come in lower powers than that :D

Case looks awesome, and if the threads are well machined, that's actually a solid value for the money. Well, as long as replacing the lens with non-plastic one right out of the box doesn't really represent any trouble to you.
 
Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
320
Points
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Ontopic, Well you can't really miss much with 445nm diodes - they only go as low as 1W in declared output, so it's really the guaranteed minimum power, no matter what the laser costs (as long as it actually has a 445nm diode).

lolz
That's very true. I also got this this cheap-o one for $55 Canadian. Threads are cheaper because the host is very thin, but it works at 1250mw and the only thing I hate about it is that the lens can be fully removed.
 

Jaquan

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Aug 28, 2015
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Hey, I recently bought one of these and I wondering if you could give me a quick walkthrough on replacing the lense since mine also came like yours. It also was wobbly between the main host and the front that you twist to focus, and I was wondering if you have any advice for that as well.
 

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Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
320
Points
28
Hey, I recently bought one of these and I wondering if you could give me a quick walkthrough on replacing the lense since mine also came like yours. It also was wobbly between the main host and the front that you twist to focus, and I was wondering if you have any advice for that as well.

Welcome to the forums. Please go to the Welcome Forum and post an introduction thread.
The only advice I can really impart onto you about that is that you should never have batteries in that laser when you're working on it. If you had no lens in it and turned it on, the laser light would spread out across your face and cause definite eye damage. Also never have batteries in the laser when adjusting the position of the lens inside, because mechanical assemblies can fail and it might turn on for no reason by accident. If you're lucky enough to have a big back yard, you can focus the laser to its tightest shape on your fence. If you don't, please DO NOT go out to a public place (like a park) to do it, but rather focus it roughly by getting a tight beam in the night sky (without aircraft anywhere in the area).
I can't help you with how wobbly it is, because that's just cheap machining. They don't have quality engineers checking those. Just try to tighten the offending parts as much as possible, or try using teflon tape to fill in empty space between the threads
 
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Joined
Sep 12, 2015
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I also bought one of these lasers a little while ago and of course discovered the melty lens. I quickly ordered a metal housed glass one to replace it with as well, but my laser just stopped working suddenly. I was not surprised as I was leery of making an order in the first place. I wrote the seller and got a full refund. I then today made a much better purchase (sci-fi) like I should have in the first place.

A bit bored this morning, I opened up the host of the broken laser and discovered that the wire running from the battery contact had come off (melted? tugged). With a refund securely in hand, I figure why not try and fix this thing and maybe have a free working laser!

What I can't figure out, is how the heck do I get inside there so I can solder the wire back to the driver? The heatsink doesn't seem like it will unscrew from the host, is it soldered on to the host somehow?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

:thanks:


Here are some pictures:
 

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Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
320
Points
28
I also bought one of these lasers a little while ago and of course discovered the melty lens. I quickly ordered a metal housed glass one to replace it with as well, but my laser just stopped working suddenly. I was not surprised as I was leery of making an order in the first place. I wrote the seller and got a full refund. I then today made a much better purchase (sci-fi) like I should have in the first place.

A bit bored this morning, I opened up the host of the broken laser and discovered that the wire running from the battery contact had come off (melted? tugged). With a refund securely in hand, I figure why not try and fix this thing and maybe have a free working laser!

What I can't figure out, is how the heck do I get inside there so I can solder the wire back to the driver? The heatsink doesn't seem like it will unscrew from the host, is it soldered on to the host somehow?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

:thanks:


Here are some pictures:

That tube is one big solid part. The copper heatsink is pressed in there, and fits by friction. You would have to get a pipe with an outer diameter slightly smaller than the laser body's inner diameter; and the pipe's inner would have to accommodate the driver so it doesn't get crushed. Then using a vise, press the heatsink out from the inside. Then you can solder the wire on the driver through the body tube and then press it back in after you test it. If it doesn't press back in, you can use some thin strands from a braided copper or aluminum wire inserted between the host and heatsink so it'll stay in. Make sure to use a pressing pipe small enough such that itself won't get press fit into the host by accident, and to protect the diode from the jaw of the vise; you'd need a similar diameter pipe to the host to allow the heatsink to come out without getting constrained by the vise, probably just the front of the laser assembly.
Edit: I see a thin line in image #3 near the back of the heatsink. Is that a thread? Have you tried unscrewing it? You might need a vise and a strap wrench
 
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