MapsAndLegends
New member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2019
- Messages
- 23
- Points
- 3
Hey y'all. I recently developed an obsession with cool laser pointers. It may last or I may get over it and obsess about something else. We'll see. 
MY LASER JOURNEY
* buy a pen-style green laser that takes AAA batteries (Green Laser #1) on amazon four years ago (advertised as 1mW, the warning sticker says <5mW). Play with it. It's cool. Forget about it.
* go to a local observatory event where amateur astronomers are using green laser pointers to point stuff out in the sky. Think "Whooooooaaaa coool". Dig up Green Laser #1, find that it's way too weak to show a beam in the sky. Google around and learn about other lasers like the 303. Google around a *lot* about 303s. Finally find a 303-type laser (labeled Dreamlizer) on Amazon, advertised as <5mW. Buy it. (Green Laser #2). It's AWESOME. Visible beam at night or even in dim rooms. Can burn stuff when focused on dark objects. I eventually learn to focus it well enough to burn a non-sharpied match at a couple inches' range, quickly. Yasssss. I wonder whether it's *really* <5mW. No way to know. Read up a lot on laser safety. Buy some red laser googles. Worry about infrared.
* Order red and purple 303-style lasers from Ebay, both advertised as <5mW.
* Play with Green Laser #2 for a while, also have Green Laser #1 out to mess around with. I eventually learn that if I give Green Laser #1 a little time to warm up, and give it a nice fresh set of powerful batteries, it is apparently as bright and as far-shooting as Green Laser #2!!! Whoa!! That's a lot of power in a pen-sized laser!!!
* Red Laser comes in the mail. Labeled <5mW. Everything about it is thoroughly unimpressive. Bascially it's a glorified cat toy. Well, it can eventually light a match if focused. Eventually.
* I take apart Red Laser and Green Laser #2 and swap the lens part of the case to see what happens. Nothing interesting. I swap them back.
* I notice that the Green Laser now has a blob of light to the side, and the dot is kind of smeary. Oh crap, did I bump something or smudge something while taking it apart and putting it back together? I use various wipes to try and clean the lens, and mostly just make it worse. Eventually I decide this laser is a write-off, and just take it apart to see what's inside. I order a new one (a different green 303, this time from ebay). I also order one from DealExtreme which claims to be 200mW.
* The violet laser comes in the mail! Woo hoo! It's labeled "<200mW" instead of "<5mW". OH MAN. Did I get a much better laser? It's hard to compare. The dot is way less impressive than either green laser, but of course that's to be expected because green is the brightest. You can never see the beam. It can light matches, but not any better than Green Laser #2. Worse if anything. The fact that fluorescent things like white pieces of paper or cloth or whatever light up bright when the laser hits it, is really cool. It's neat to use to watch fluorescent things light up, but other than that, not that interesting.
So there I am. I have a little pen green one which seems to be doing great, another green one I messed up and broke, a red one that's completely underwhelming, a violet one that's really neat (with a sticker that suggests it might be very powerful) but other than the fluorescent effects isn't that impressive. And I have 2 more green ones in the mail on their way here.
I registered here because this seems like the most well-informed place on the internet to talk about lasers, and I'd love to be able to hit people up about questions I have.
Oh, one question I have is.... I notice that on eBay, lasers are often given with a number of "miles" that seems completely ridiculous ("5 mile laser" "40 mile laser" "100 mile laser") -- like, how could you test that? where could you possibly find a 100 mile line of sight to shoot your laser? I have a hard time in my area finding anything more than a quarter mile or so to test mine.
But then it occurred to me that all those numbers are completely plausible as measures of *milliwats* of laser output. I'm wondering if that's a code people are using on ebay to indicate the number of actual milliwatts of lasers which they're selling as "<5mW" for legal reasons?.... Just wondering if that was a thing.
In any case, I'm glad to meet y'all and happy to have a good resource in my terrifying journey through sketchy and possibly dangerous ebay lasers.
MY LASER JOURNEY
* buy a pen-style green laser that takes AAA batteries (Green Laser #1) on amazon four years ago (advertised as 1mW, the warning sticker says <5mW). Play with it. It's cool. Forget about it.
* go to a local observatory event where amateur astronomers are using green laser pointers to point stuff out in the sky. Think "Whooooooaaaa coool". Dig up Green Laser #1, find that it's way too weak to show a beam in the sky. Google around and learn about other lasers like the 303. Google around a *lot* about 303s. Finally find a 303-type laser (labeled Dreamlizer) on Amazon, advertised as <5mW. Buy it. (Green Laser #2). It's AWESOME. Visible beam at night or even in dim rooms. Can burn stuff when focused on dark objects. I eventually learn to focus it well enough to burn a non-sharpied match at a couple inches' range, quickly. Yasssss. I wonder whether it's *really* <5mW. No way to know. Read up a lot on laser safety. Buy some red laser googles. Worry about infrared.
* Order red and purple 303-style lasers from Ebay, both advertised as <5mW.
* Play with Green Laser #2 for a while, also have Green Laser #1 out to mess around with. I eventually learn that if I give Green Laser #1 a little time to warm up, and give it a nice fresh set of powerful batteries, it is apparently as bright and as far-shooting as Green Laser #2!!! Whoa!! That's a lot of power in a pen-sized laser!!!
* Red Laser comes in the mail. Labeled <5mW. Everything about it is thoroughly unimpressive. Bascially it's a glorified cat toy. Well, it can eventually light a match if focused. Eventually.
* I take apart Red Laser and Green Laser #2 and swap the lens part of the case to see what happens. Nothing interesting. I swap them back.
* I notice that the Green Laser now has a blob of light to the side, and the dot is kind of smeary. Oh crap, did I bump something or smudge something while taking it apart and putting it back together? I use various wipes to try and clean the lens, and mostly just make it worse. Eventually I decide this laser is a write-off, and just take it apart to see what's inside. I order a new one (a different green 303, this time from ebay). I also order one from DealExtreme which claims to be 200mW.
* The violet laser comes in the mail! Woo hoo! It's labeled "<200mW" instead of "<5mW". OH MAN. Did I get a much better laser? It's hard to compare. The dot is way less impressive than either green laser, but of course that's to be expected because green is the brightest. You can never see the beam. It can light matches, but not any better than Green Laser #2. Worse if anything. The fact that fluorescent things like white pieces of paper or cloth or whatever light up bright when the laser hits it, is really cool. It's neat to use to watch fluorescent things light up, but other than that, not that interesting.
So there I am. I have a little pen green one which seems to be doing great, another green one I messed up and broke, a red one that's completely underwhelming, a violet one that's really neat (with a sticker that suggests it might be very powerful) but other than the fluorescent effects isn't that impressive. And I have 2 more green ones in the mail on their way here.
I registered here because this seems like the most well-informed place on the internet to talk about lasers, and I'd love to be able to hit people up about questions I have.
Oh, one question I have is.... I notice that on eBay, lasers are often given with a number of "miles" that seems completely ridiculous ("5 mile laser" "40 mile laser" "100 mile laser") -- like, how could you test that? where could you possibly find a 100 mile line of sight to shoot your laser? I have a hard time in my area finding anything more than a quarter mile or so to test mine.
But then it occurred to me that all those numbers are completely plausible as measures of *milliwats* of laser output. I'm wondering if that's a code people are using on ebay to indicate the number of actual milliwatts of lasers which they're selling as "<5mW" for legal reasons?.... Just wondering if that was a thing.
In any case, I'm glad to meet y'all and happy to have a good resource in my terrifying journey through sketchy and possibly dangerous ebay lasers.
