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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Lasers and Motorcycles

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I'm reviewing the GLP-473 "pointer" I got from Glenn's GB#7. It is rated at >5 mW of 473 nM Blue. This is a replacement laser from the GB and Glenn handeled everything very well. The first laser was so temperature sensitive that it barely had power at "pocket temperature". It needed to be COOL to get about 8 mW of Blue. That laser was returned to CNI through Glenn and this review is of the replacement laser. I won't dwell on simple observations here since we all know what lasers look like.

2417-glp473-1.jpg


This picture shows the "pointer" with a ruler for scale purposes. It has no pocket clip so be careful when bending over! Mine fell about 2' with no harm.

Unlike the first laser, this laser likes to be kept warm in a shirt pocket. At 65 Degrees, power is a little low but it quickly warms up.
I'm running this on an Ultrafire TR15270 LiIon cell rated at 3 Volts and 800 mA hours. Be sure to use case + when installing the cell. I have measured 520 mA draw from the cell when tested.

I have run two power charts with my "old school" methods. The first one is at shirt pocket temp for about 2 minutes. The second graph is after a 20 minute cool down period. Both graphs show significant power over rating.

2418-glp473-2.jpg


2419-glp473-3.jpg



Remember that this model has pulsed output for power and heat control. This pulsed output is not normally noticed unless the laser is moved quickly across a close surface but may be a problem for some intending to use this for projection purposes. The PWM rate is ~ 75% on as shown here. This shouldn't be a problem for most users looking simply for color.

2421-glp473-5.jpg


For better understanding of the duty cycle, I got a "picture" of the output. It looks to be more like 55% ON PWM. I think the noise is stray pick-up from lights and monitor.

2447-pulse-cni.jpg


Now to the meat. Divergance.......
I tested the laser outside and found a beam diameter of 0.161" at 25'. Nice looking spot. BUT, at 156' , the beam displayed TEM01 mode and 1.367" Max. Using the calculator here, --- 0.767 mRad which seems overly good.

For color comparison, I add a pix of the 473 nM beside a 160 mW Blu 405 nM. The target is a piece of white styrofoam and the camera is near blinded. I forgot to add this last night.

2420-glp473-4.jpg


No it won't POP or Burn :na: But here's a beam shot from 100'.

2422-glp473-6.jpg


I'll add more if something comes up. Glenn did a great job getting me a better sample from CNI. A big thanks to Glenn and his GB.

HMike
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

That's a nice laser you got there. The picture showing it pulsed looks awesome.
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Kevin --

I included that to show the effect and it's possible limitations in some limited applications.

HMike
 

Ears and Eggs

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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Man that's some nice beam divergence. I should be getting my 68mW version of this from Glenn anytime now. Really interested to see what kind of mode issues these might have at the higher powers, my old ~5mW ones used to get some serious TEM01 when the temp got to low. Pretty sure that any of these I have owned before did not have a divergence anywhere near that good either. Unfortunately though, I do not have anywhere as large as 150' that I can test, so it'll have to be a much smaller distance.



Hemlock Mike said:
It has no pocket clip so be careful when bending over! Mine fell about 2' with no harm.


LOL! Good thing it wasn't a bigger drop. I dropped my Rigel-5 the other day. It fell out of the tripod mount I had it in, fell to the table, and then bounced off the table onto the floor, and it has a pen clip!
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Thanks Mike for the review... Oh how i'd like one of those blues... I better start saving I guess! LOL... although an argon of any kind would probably come first. ;)

BTW, after all taxes and shipping, how much did this set you back?

Robert
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

REV2007 ---
I was amazed at the divergence too. I used a piece of charcoal to measure the beam with calipers. The beam looked good at the close range but across two backyards, I had a TEM01 double dot. I measured the Max size. My beam shot also appears to show the mode.

Rob --- It's been sooo long --- I think I spent about $325 for this in GB7 and I forget if there was shipping. Glenn took care of me on this.

HMike
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Rev ---
I took another picture of the beam at 150+ feet. This is against a neighbor's white shed. The TEM01 mode was not as obvious tonight but the spot is still oval in nature. These DPSS Blue lasers can be tricky to photo.
This pointer appeared much better tonight.

2423-glp473-7.jpg


The two vertical lines come from the siding on the shed and are not artifacts from the laser.

HMike
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

The divergence on my AqPro 473 is absolutely unbelievable, probably the 'tightest' laser I own... PGL-III-C is a bit wider but, these 473s *can* do really good divergence.
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Aryn -- Glad to see some agreement here. The divergence calculations amaze me but I try to do it over a great distance to reduce stray errors. I may try a magnifier lens for another experiment.

HMike

Maybe I'm wrong or the TEM mode is intermittent but using a lens in front of this Blue beam does not display TEM01 mode right now.
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Just an Idea here ----
Comparison between a CNI BLUE and a CNI YELLOW.
Low power but Super colors !!!

2424-glp473-8.jpg


HMike
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

I made a comment about an observed TEM 01 mode with this laser. I now notice that another DPSS BLUE I'm testing also has a reported and observed oblong beam spot at over 100'.
Has anyone else testing a DPSS BLUE observed this beam characteristic?

HMike
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Bump ... Anyone with experience with DPSS BLUE lasers?

HMike
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Am I the only one here testing DPSS BLUE pointers / portables??? Someone here has to have some data .... or is this the wrong forum...................

HMike
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Mike,

Phoenix77 and I have posted some duty cycle and power observations for our PGL-III-C 473s over in the GB#7 thread; we could probably relate them here.

We just got them, and mine initially had a problem, (but seems to be OK now; I believe it was overvoltage) - I do plan to do a review like my CNI 671 review; though I'm working my way up to a Kenometer Pro so I don't have to keep travelling down to CU to get measurements in the phys-lab.

Overall as far as "experience" goes, I've had my PGL-III-A (AqPro) for a few months now and those observations line up with the PGL-III-C, and what other people are saying: Extremely temperature dependent (more so than 593.5's which are just unstable no matter what temperature) - but once they get going they can be well over-spec; Tendency to go Tem01, but when they're Tem00, divergence is very tight - much like your observations. (A short measurement on my PGL-III-A gives about an 0.7mrad divergence as well; it's honestly the least divergent laser I have; I'll have to do an outdoor-distance measurement soon) When cold, (and room temperature is almost always 'cold' to a 473) - they start out very weak; 5mW-10mW even, and as they warm up (say 10-20 seconds in) they reach their full potential for that cycle.

Beam spot size for me never seems to be perfectly gaussian, much like your observation. They seem to want to shift oblong as they "fight" to stay Tem00 vs Tem01. My PGL-III-A however, with a much smaller (0.5 vs 1.0 mm) exit diameter seems to be much more circular than my PGL-III-C. Also, as my PGL-III-C warms up, there's a lot of beam shape shifting, even if it never actually mode hops. PGL-III-A less so.

Duty cycles seem to favor 60-120 seconds, with a favorable 30 second pause in between duty cycles to keep them going at their best while you're using them. Exceeding the duty cycle I've found, (i.e., running it for 7-10 minutes until the output is down to 10mW) require a very long cooldown time; possibly even an hour, before they start behaving like they did before. The good news is, they do behave like they did before after given a rest. I don't know how many long cycles like this they could stand, though, so I wouldn't do it too often.

We've also observed that they may seem to have a 'break in period' -- after some use, they actually seem to get stronger. Now, that's anecdotal at this point and we'd have to have more samples but Phoenix77 and I seemed to observe the same phenomenon. That after some use, they do better. Not sure why this would be. And we need more samples before we can draw a conclusion. It'd be very interesting to hear whether or not yours does the same.

Anyways -- That's my summary of experience to date with 473s. If anyone else could comment, relate similar experiences, or add, it'd be good to start getting some common knowledge on these lasers as they do become more common. (Just a while ago they sure were pretty rare.)

Hope this helps some.
 
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Re: CNI GLP-473 Blue Review

Aryntha --

Thank you for your observations. Your results are very similar to mine and it seems to be related to the current science available for DPSS Blue and not to the manufacturers.
That is a needed summary I wanted. Sorry I can't give you a +rep for some reason. You seem to be of the few who can help me here --- out of 9,000+ members.

I've made a bunch of graphs with different temperture starting points and they all "tell a different story". I needed your info to agree with what I'm seeing on my meters.

HMike
 
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