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Lasterbtb 520nm 50mW [HL520-50B single mode] review

clansley

clansley

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Sep 20, 2014
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This is my first review so please be gentle!

Listed Specs
Wavelength: 520nm +/- 10nm
Power: 50mW
Beam divergence,full angle (mrad):<3.0
Beam Diameter at Aperture (mm): <2.5
Duty cycle: 15 mins on / 10 secs off

I've read that the duty cycles on laserbtb's website aren't reliable, but I'm not currently sure how to test that without putting the laser at risk.

Delivery
I opted for the fast shipping, but as there were some issues with DHL/FedEx Kevin used HongKong post instead:

Ordered: Fri 19 Sep
Informed of delivery delays: Wed 24 Sep
Shipped: Thurs 25 Sep (via HongKong post)
Arrived in UK: Mon 29 Sep
Arrived: Wed 01 Oct
Total Time: 12 days (7 days in transist)

Packaging
The whole package was inside a slightly bigger cardboard box with some screwed up newspaper, which took many of knocks of being shipped around the world. It did its job well as the laser box arrived in good condition: (I found the screwed up newspaper interesting to see as I've not seen a Chinese newspaper before!)


Laser Host
With power key lock, power LED indicator, beam shutter and focus ring.
Holding 2 x 16340 batteries.
NB: Not with remote connector switch as shown on website.







Beam shot

I found doing a realistic beam shot very hard - still not happy with this result, but will try harder next time:



Divergence/spot profile
I'm still not completely sure about measuring divergence as seen by this thread of mine.

Spot at 9 meters:
full angle = 7mm, FWHM = 5mm

Spot at 16 meters:
full angle = 12mm, FWHM = 10mm

That would give divergence of:
full angle = 0.71mRad
FWHM = 0.71mRad

Defocused/enlarged spot:


Spot profile at 16 meters:
Through my (OD4) glasses it doesn't look this bad only one line under the spot is visible - I dare not look close up without glasses so have to take the camera's word for it.

Power
I don't have a LPM, but Kevin kindly tested it before shipping:


So putting the laser at 52mW.

Their website shows the 50mW lighting a match - I'm not really into burning but I have noticed that when placing the focused point on black card for a few seconds that it starts to smoke so I have no doubt it will light a black match. Although, I imagine if you're into burning then 50mW won't satisfy you.

Conclusion
I'm new with lasers so I can only comment based on my limited experience.

I wanted the least powerful laser with a very visible beam in the dark. The beam of this laser is as bright as I had hoped! It is very clearly visible. [I did have some concerns as some posts stated needing 200mW of 532nm to have a clearly visible beam - this is clearly nonsense!]

Customer Service is good; Kevin tries his best - this was demonstrated by his willingness to LPM the laser for me and for attempting to avoid DHL/FedEx postal issues by using HongKong post instead.

I would recommend Lasterbtb, and would be happy to use them again.
 
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Awesome review!

I have yet to see 520 myself, but I hear the color is as amazing as it sounds! :)

-Alex
 
the HL hosts dont have any indication LED only the red when its powered on, otherwise good review i have the 100mW fun laser.
 
I believe the red is so that you can see the LED indicator through the glasses because the glasses block green. Someone please correct me if i'm wrong, don't want to give OP bad information.
 
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At 50mW I suspect you could actually run this indefinitely. My hl532-100 runs for up to 20 minutes constant on with no problems (in fact it stabilises after this time) and the barrel is only a tiny bit warm. Bear in mind this 100mW is actually driven by probably half a watt of pump power, 10x more than your bare diode green so you most likely have no need for a duty cycle. I found out my hl532s robustness after forgetting to turn it off one time after a photo session and finding that after 20 or so minutes it was hardly warm.

The pl445 is estimated at 4 minutes on and 20 seconds off but I know for a fact mine says different on the laser itself. 4 minutes on would be the upper limit for me but if you gave it 4 minutes rest it would cool down certainly in my house.
 
I also find that most places do not accurately state the divergence of their units, even jetlasers, requiring measuring yourself. I dont see how single mode could be as bad as 3mrad and just saying it's less than that is lazy and vague. (on their part) my 100mW 520 can run a long time. once it accidentally turned on in my pocket, it had to have been on for quite some time. it still works fine, no degrade in power either over the relatively long time i've had it. I think they must be fairly robust diodes

I dont think looking at a 50mW dot on a black surface like that is too bad if your eye is a few feet away, but it doesnt hurt to be safe I suppose
 
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Great info, thanks guys!

Having seen this thread again, i should say that I figured out why this laser has that unusual spot profile, it's because the beam hits the side of the exit hole (i.e. the beam does not cleanly pass through the exit). I presume this is not something I will be able to fix.
 
trencheel wow how is that even possible? laserbtb claims its only 10minutes on /10seconds off duty cycle so i dont know how u can dare to put it on that long without any damage? i thought u would need a more beefy host, even the PL host i have hard time imagine u could run in that long.. maybe in very cold environments as im having a hard time understanding how that thing can be on so long and still work? i wonder what kevin would think if we asked him haha.

I know my 520 100mW gets warm within a minute or so and i got from kevin the runtime is only 3 minutes on that which feels accurate considering how warm it gets within a minute..
 
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They just make it up as they go, don't they? "15 minutes on 10 seconds off" is 99%. The temperature difference by raising that to 100% would be about zero. If anything, there would be more thermal stress introduced by turning it off for 10 seconds.

Unless it's hot to the touch, you've got nothing to worry about.
 
Cyparagon said:
They just make it up as they go, don't they? "15 minutes on 10 seconds off" is 99%. The temperature difference by raising that to 100% would be about zero. If anything, there would be more thermal stress introduced by turning it off for 10 seconds.

Unless it's hot to the touch, you've got nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...

Indeed, this doesn't seem to make any sense. If it is actually as good at stated the duty cycle should be infinite, or they could turn down the power by 1% to make that so.

Considering the relatively low electrical consumption of the diode and size of the host this probably is already the case - you can run this unit 24x365 without a need to turn it off for overheating reasons. In reality you'd need to change the batteries whe they drain, but i doubt there would be a reason keeping it on from full to flat battery level would be any problem at all.
 
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