Good starter laser?

[KrowBar]

Well, mortuus, if a bright laser is visible to you, then it should be visible to others. Anyway it will be dimmer than the 445 blue mW to mW.
Hey silver, any chance of seeing some nice beamshots?

Because the visibility of the beam due to Rayleigh scattering depends on the angle between the viewer and the beam axis, a dim beam may be quite visible to the one holding the laser, but not visible to those who are several feet (or hundreds of feet) away and at much higher angles WRT to the beam. I think this is what mortuus was referring to.

BTW @NRGLite, good job on better integration with the community and toning it down. Your posts are becoming more meaningful and appropriate instead of blindly/immaturely enthusiastic. You might just be fitting in :yh:

 

[NRGLite]

Yea, I learned my lesson. That's why I'll always remember what it was like and help newbies to get along in the forum. niii, that's why you should read the FAQs and stuff. Once I fit in, it's gonna take a krowbar to crank me out. :crackup:

 

[SilverFire]

Once I actually buy something over 5mW, then sure! I plan on updating the forum with lots of beam shots and maybe even a review or two. Until then, still deciding on a first non-red cheapy laser. Lol still got some stuff to check out and read reviews on.

 

[SilverFire]

Btw, I've never seen ANY color laser other than dim 5mW reds. And then I've only seen the beam of my reds on really foggy nights. Never been to a laser light show, and most people around here at the beach don't even know there is such thing as lasers that are blue or purple or yellow. So I rly hope to see what laser light looks like in the near future :yh:. Yes I love looking at other people's laser pictures and it gives me an idea of how bright and cool they are in real life. I'll let y'all know when I get my hands on something bigger.

 

[NRGLite]

Silver, here're some pics of my 800 mW blue laser. Was supposed to be 1W but I went all-fired safe and drove it at a low amp number, 1.25 A. Maybe I'll get a G-2 lens for greater output. :drool:

For all you sharp-eyed viewers, picture number 161 is in my signature.
Two vids up next: One is a comparison between an overspec 5 mW (probably 15 mW) and the 800 mW 445. The second is me burning a match long distance.
Comparison
Burning!

 

[SilverFire]

Stop It! Your going to make me spend too much money on lasers! They look awesome dude! Looks a ton more purple than I thought a 445nm would look. I would give u another 1 rep for the cool pictures but I already gave ya one lol.

EDIT: just looked at the videos right now, they are so cool! Now I know how much brighter green is than blue mW for mW. Still, blue seems to be more exotic than green. One reason I want one is cause some don't even believe me when I say there are blue lasers that have visible beams. Want something a bit out of the ordinary . Lasers are a rare sight over here lol. And when I do see em, they are all red!

 

[NRGLite]

Hey silver,
If you just want cool brightness factors then you could go with 100 mW green. It's exactly as bright (or brighter :drool as this 800 mW blue because green is more detectable to the human eye. From lazerer.com you can get a trustworthy module for pretty cheap ($40). Next just a heatsink from survivallaser.com. Then really, all you have to do is get the wire option, place it in the heatsink, and rig it up to the appropriate power source, since the batteries won't harm it on account of the driver in the module. But if you want to get fancy, you might want to stash it in a host. :san:

 

[SilverFire]

Makes it sound easy. I know that Lazerer has been kinda slow lately and they have not responded to any emails I sent them so not quite sure if they will even ship me something. And with the heat sink transfer (to replace the junk Chinese one) I need to look up A ton more on how to put together lasers. I love taking stuff apart so I may have to wait till I can get my hands on something to experiment with.