IgorT Blu-Ray 121mw Review

[ohada]

Hey Everyone,

Here's my review of an IgorT 121mw Blu-Ray laser, after having it for several days now.
There is a thread by IgorT describing the laser in the "Buy, Sell & Trade" board:

laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1210968450

So i'll skip the description and go straight to the interesting stuff:

Beam Quality: The focusable beam is very "clean" - no aura or spots around it (compared to lazershopuk, which is not focusable and has some "dirt" around the beam). It has all the strangeness of a 405nm laser (such as hard to focus the eye on the dot), as described in this excellent thread:
laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1219161671
The beam is absolutely visible in darkness (less than green/red/blue however) and it's amazing!

Burning Ability: For burning the beam must be focused on the burn target (since the beam is not thin like green lasers). I am easily able to pop balloons from several feet (all colors - and no need to paint the ballon black), singe black plastic, and burn white paper - something which I can't do with my greens or DX 200mw.

Heating: This laser doesn't get hot very easily. I turned it on many times, for 2-3 minutes the longest and I didn't feel any heat through the body. It probably does get hot eventually, but not if using it as I do. (The DX Dilda 200mw heats very quickly compared to it).

Service: The service by Igor was great, very informative. Buying from a person and not from a company web-site makes the process personal.

I'm very happy with my new laser, great work Igor!

I attached several photos, here's their descriptions:
1) The beam spot.
2) Laser turned on with the glow-in-the-dark cap. This makes a small flash-light.
3) Two glow-in-the-dark signs after passing the laser on them (photo taken in dark room, no flash).
4) The same signs after passing the laser unfocused to cover them completely.
5) Long exposure of passing the laser on the signs.
6) Long exposure, laser unfocused.

Both of my cameras suck at sensing this wave length - they barely sense it and when they do, it shows as a very dim blue, instead of violet. This is why I was unable to make a photo of the beam, like I did for my other colors, which is a shame, the beam is very pretty.

 

[IgorT]

Glad to hear you're enjoying your laser!


About the heat.. I tested the heatsinking many times, by leaving my experimental lasers on for 30-60 minutes. It takes about 20 minutes to start feeling warm, if you touch it with your lips.. At 30 minutes it reaches 33°C, and at 60 minutes it reaches 36°C - that's one hour to reach body temp (at 24°C ambient).

And the experimental lasers in those tests were all set to 160mA or more! This means the laser at the usual current won't ever get hot even under abnormal use.

Diodes are made to operate at much higher temperatures than this, but i would still recommend to keep the use to under 5 minutes, just in case. 2-3 is perfectly fine, and most people tell me they use it like this.



The reason your dilda heats up so fast is the low efficiency of the linear driver, not the diode. I use a switching driver with almost 90% efficiency for the blu rays, so the diode is pretty much the only source of heat. This reduces the total power dissipation to less than a third, and makes it possible to make a laser small, without overhating.

For some calculations and comparisons of power dissipation (heat) in different laser setups, check out this post: http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1210968450/616#616


If you ever have any questions, or need any help, just let me know!

 

[rangedunits]

Uhm i think it will be my next laser Great review.

 

[Helioplasma]

Thanks for the review, ohada. Your pictures are awesome especially with the GITD (photo 5-6).

 

[daguin]

I love the long exposure picture where you can see the beam change from (blu) to glowing on the signs and back to (blu) again.  That is the first time I have seen this in pictures.  It shows one of the reasons why the 405nm is so interesting to play with.

Peace,
dave

[highlight]@ Rangedunits --[/highlight] You can never go wrong with anything IgorT is involved with

 

[TheGr8Revealing]

what mA is the thing running at?

 

[vcw]

Awesome photos, now do some videos,

 

[solar00]

I agree with this review,
I also have a Blu-ray from IgorT(132mW) and it burns very well when you have the right focus.
It even burns a white wooden door and all colors and sizes of matches(not only the tip but it can write on wood of the match itself)
And if you use a fog machine the violet beam looks really brilliant. (just as bright as a 100mW green under normal dark conditions without smoke)

One very nice effect is to point it at a piece of paper colored with a yellow highlighter, it give a very bright cyan colored dot.
And if you combine it's dot with the dot of a focussed DX200 red it becomes magenta.