Laserbee 1000mW LPM

[Murudai]

This is a review of this unit here: http://www.bauer-electron.com/eby/eby1wlpm.htm

And so far, I must say I'm very impressed with this unit


General:

Unit shipped in about a week from Canada to Australia, so that's pretty good. Shipping was expensive, but it was fully insured so if it got lost on the way it would be covered. And that's always nice.

The whole thing is much smaller than I expected. If you mounted and boxed it properly, it could be pocket sized! It's designed to be integrated into a box and everything, but I just use it as it came. Looks cooler this way The build quality looks very good.

It didn't come with instructions because you're meant to download them off the site. Which I did, and printed them. And they are very clear and thorough with how to set up and use the meter.

The meter also has a backlight to make it really clear to see. There are some small pins with a little bridge you can either remove or leave on depending on whether you want the backlight on or not.

The meter came with some software too for data logging. It's a little tricky to use though, and gives some crazy results some times. It will work out a graph if you are patient, but for general use it's easier just to read the display on the unit.


Performance:

So more importantly, how did it do as a meter? The only laser I have with a verified output is jayrob's MXDL burner, which was labelled as 292mW. I metered this at 285mW. A 2% deviation, which is actually quite good, considering I have no idea how good jayrobs meter is

Here's how some of my other lasers faired.

DX200 sat stably at 182mW.
My box style blu-ray from skram0 sat stably at 55mW.

And finally my WL 125mW with a fresh pair of lithiums peaked at around 80mW and then sat around 50-60mW.
...
What a piece of crap I was willing to defend WL products before but averaging at HALF the advertised output is just a load of bull. It should still be under warranty so I'm going to return it.


Conclusion:

At just $210 this is an excellent value meter that appears to be doing its intended job. Probably wouldn't cut it in the big leagues, but for hobby use it's perfect. I recommend it

 

[JLSE]

The meter came with some software too for data logging. It's a little tricky to use though, and gives some crazy results some times. It will work out a graph if you are patient, but for general use it's easier just to read the display on the unit.

What part of the graphing is trickey? I havent experianced any difficulty in this area, and the printout pretty much sums it up. I have noticed that the graph will fluctuate with minor movements of the beam, but aside from that it rides out pretty smooth. I would be interested to see the screenshots of any annomalies you might be experiancing.

Any idea how to hook this up through USB?

 

[Murudai]

And finally my WL 125mW with a fresh pair of lithiums peaked at around 80mW and then sat around 50-60mW.
...
What a piece of crap I was willing to defend WL products before but averaging at HALF the advertised output is just a load of bull. It should still be under warranty so I'm going to return it.

There, email sent. It's only got 2 weeks of warranty left, so the meter arrived not a moment to soon! I don't think they'll take a refund, since it's 10 weeks old, but hopefully I can get a nice new one that ACTUALLY works to advertised power so I can sell it

 

[Murudai]

What part of the graphing is trickey? I havent experianced any difficulty in this area, and the printout pretty much sums it up. I have noticed that the graph will fluctuate with minor movements of the beam, but aside from that it rides out pretty smooth. I would be interested to see the screenshots of any annomalies you might be experiancing.

Any idea how to hook this up through USB?

Mainly I noticed that sometimes with no laser shining at it the computer would read it as 997mW or something, though the actual read out would stay at 0mW. Naturally, a few 997mW readings completely mess up the average and the peak readings

Plus the interface could be a little better. A 'clear graph' button would be nice. Also, it would be good to be able to select a region to take the average of just that region. It's kinda annoying to have the 10 seconds of setting the laser up included in the average reading. And also be nice to cut out regions of the graph, like the first bit so you only get the graph of the laser and not the bit before.


As for USB, I've no idea. But it doesn't bother me because I have a laptop that's over 10 years old (and I've owned for 2.5 years) that has a serial port just perfect for this I mainly use it for screwing around with wireless networks but for now it'll make a nice graphing computer

 

[SenKat_Stonetek]

Belkin makes a USB/serial converter.... Check out Geeks.com - I THINK there was one on there the other day I was drooling over non-related stuff

 

[Petrovski]

So how does it feel to be able to measure your lasers? Pretty nice huh?

 

[JLSE]

Belkin makes a USB/serial converter.... Check out Geeks.com - I THINK there was one on there the other day I was drooling over non-related stuff

LOL, I just got home from getting a converter.

http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1214528356/17#17

 

[Rhith]

Awesome stuff there. Sorry to hear about your WL though. Once I get a job I guess I should get one of these. :

 

[Kenom]

He's now including in the instructions not to mount the meter inside a box.  I'd like to see the reasoning for this.  If there is a scientific reason or if it's just spitefulness over my initial reviews of his optical unit and the modifications I've done to a few of his Thermal meters by putting them in boxes.  I honestly see no reason for not putting your meter inside a box as a matter of fact since the meter is so sensative to thermal fluctuations having it inside an enclosure would help stabalize the output not adversly  affect it.  Just more plain stupidness on the builders end.  sheesh

http://www.bauer-ee.com/laserbee/LB-I.pdf

On another note.  These things pretty much use the same software as a voltmeter with serial port.  so I would imagine that if you were to get your hands on some of that software it would work fine you would just need to convert the output in mv.  don't quote me on that though.  only one way to find out for sure.

 

[docjohn]

He's now including in the instructions not to mount the meter inside a box. I'd like to see the reasoning for this. If there is a scientific reason or if it's just spitefulness over my initial reviews of his optical unit and the modifications I've done to a few of his Thermal meters by putting them in boxes. I honestly see no reason for not putting your meter inside a box as a matter of fact since the meter is so sensative to thermal fluctuations having it inside an enclosure would help stabalize the output not adversly affect it. Just more plain stupidness on the builders end. sheesh

http://www.bauer-ee.com/laserbee/LB-I.pdf

On another note. These things pretty much use the same software as a voltmeter with serial port. so I would imagine that if you were to get your hands on some of that software it would work fine you would just need to convert the output in mv. don't quote me on that though. only one way to find out for sure.

Hi Kenom:

I think he is saying only to not mount the sensor in a box. That does not include the PCB with the readout. I see your logic about shielding the sensor from the environment. I think he is saying that a box may accumulate heat by not allowing it to diffuse into the environment. I think we are spliting hairs though. What do you think? With mine I plan to mount the PCB with readout in an enclosure. I think I will leave the sensor outside the enclosure and be able to plug it into the box or disconnect it from the box to facilitate moving the Laserbee around.

In his instructions he says------DO NOT mount the Thermopile Sensor into an enclosure… doing so will not allow the
Thermopile radiator to dissipate the laser beam’s heat properly.

 

[Cyparagon]

It's most likely not an issue at lower powers, but I can definitely see overheating the thing as a possibility at class IV levels.

 

[Kenom]

see and for the lasers we're testing here it's just plain not an issue. a 500mw laser isn't going to generate enough heat to skew the readings. Were talking a plain ol' tec that is being used to generate a temperature variance on the hot and cold side thus creating an electrical current. But the current and heat generated at these is sooooo low it's not even moving beyond the mV. The tec's are designed to run off V. not mV. so the heat is going to be negligable. Not to mention shielding it from the "elements" or air currents is just going to work in your advantage if you want a stable reading.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

On a semi-related note, what kind of thermopile does he use for that, and where does one acquire one as just a discrete part?

 

[Kenom]

On a semi-related note, what kind of thermopile does he use for that, and where does one acquire one as just a discrete part?

That is indeed a good question. We've (I) have tried to locate the tec he's using and have had no luck. those are not (as far as I know) thermopiles. but instead are just plain old TEC's.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Is he using the heat from the TEC to induce a voltage, like an inverse peltier?

 

[happytomato]

Is he using the heat from the TEC to induce a voltage, like an inverse peltier?

Yes, exactly so.