Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser....

[mfosterusmc]

Hello everyone I was searching around for and am very interested in purchasing a green or red laser (rated at 200 mW or more) for $200 - $350. I am a U. S. Marine in Iwakuni Japan and figured it would be great for field exercises, deployments, and fun in general!! Also Marines in Iraq use them to scare terrorists away .

Thanks for your help,
PFC M. J. Foster, USMC

 

[Daedal]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

Wouldn't you be able to buy that stuff cheaper on that side of the world? ;D

--DDL

 

[Comidt]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

That's True ;D
You won't really get such high power for that low of a cost unfortunately :-[

 

[Grn_n_TX]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

Check eBay in the UK or other sellers in Honk Kong.
Good luck.

Thanks for serving our country!

 

[mfosterusmc]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

The price is negotiable, I am mainly looking for a deal on greater than 200 mW. Appreciate the swift responses so far guys!

 

[pseudonomen137]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

Can you please let us know exactly what you plan to use it for? There's actualy a HUGE difference between a red and a green laser if you want to use it to scare people away. The green laser is incredibly visible at even low powers. Red lasers are much cheaper for the power though, so they are good for burning, but they suck in terms of visibility.

For example, a 4mW green leadlight (to me) looked slightly more visible than a 130mW red pulsar laser. You can't even get a portable red that will match more than perhaps 50mW of green in terms of visibility unless you want to make the beam look like crap and pay a fortune.

 

[Ashton]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

200mw red = $200 (plus shipping)
200mw green (excluding DX, which are of questionable quality) = $600-$800 (plus shipping)

Now for jsut playing around, you shoudl look at dealextreme, you can get a 200mw green laser for, I think $120 USD, however these put out anywhere from 100-220mw of green and usually a noticable ammount of IR. It's a total throw of the dice when ordering the high-end DX lasers (the low-end ones seem to be of good power, though all of them are more fragile than a NOVA or Laserglow

Keep in mind that green lasers are DPSS, which means they use a special crystal alignment to turn IR into green light, this alignment can get missaligned by jolts and jars, so you have to be careful. A red laser, however, is a bare diode and can be downright abused and still work (my reds routinely fall out of my pocket onto a hardwood floor and havn't had any problems)

if you want a green, the three I've heard good thigns about are Atlas, NOVA, and LAserglow. IF you want green power, you really cant beat the Laserglow's Hercules line. though the high-pwoers are up in the 700-2000 USD range...

IF you're going to be carrying it around and whipping it out randomly to play with... er I mean "Scare tirrorists" then you might better get a red unless you want to settle for less pwoer or a much higher price. TRuth be told if you want raw power, IR is the way to go. I can get a 500mw IR diode for <$50 (soemtimes you can get a 1W (1000mw) for this price) and the other laser components for ~$10 and build a major burner. (I recently saw a full laser (now handheld but oculd be made portable) that was 3W (3000mw!) that sold for <$200 on ebay.) Even prebuilt IR lasers are monsters at low costs, PSeudo on here has a 400mw near-IR laser he sells for <$400 (closer to $300 IIRC) compared to the costs of reds and greens the cost per miliwatt is laughable.

Now contraversially, I will state that I've heard some bad things about WickedLasers's greens (excluding their 5mw core) and about DragonLasers (the former having problems just keeping the beam steady and the latter supsoedlt selling them at higher mws than they really are (i.e. a 75mw sold as a 150mw) This is pure rumor-mill material, though, as I've not bought from DL and my only purchase from WL was a red pulsar (which I was quite happy with except for the $$$ --- paid $250 for a 125mw, and a few weeks later paid $200 for a 200mw...)

Hope that helps, if you have any questions dont hesitate to post them, somone on here will surely know the answer to ANYTHING you ask about lasers (even labbies)

 

[mfosterusmc]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

I'll be honest, I want to play with it some too . The amount of power I am looking for is..... enough to light a cigarette by directing it at the tobacco. Is that feasible? Definitely something with good power. If it is a visible beam, that is preferred. Can I have more info on these IR or near IR beams? I know with a pair of nightvisions we could see the IR beams easily, which would be cool (considering nightvison has a built in IR floodlight you can turn on for BRIGHT illumination at night). I have been reading around about the best lasers out there. I am interested in those of you who offer homemade lasers as well, and would be willing to pay for one of you guys to make one if you are interested ( I have paypal too so it is not a problem ). Thanks for your answers so far, looking forward to joined the laser community in the near future .

-PFC Foster

 

[mfosterusmc]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

Oh yeah and I was reading more into the forums, hey pseudonomen137 do you still have those 400 mW lasers for $295 ( I also am curious about you stating you were thinking of producing green out of it too )? I would be quite interested in that or similar lasers( with similar offers too, of course).

-Michael

 

[pseudonomen137]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

Oh yeah and I was reading more into the forums, hey pseudonomen137 do you still have those 400 mW lasers for $295 ( I also am curious about you stating you were thinking of producing green out of it too )? I would be quite interested in that or similar lasers( with similar offers too, of course).

-Michael

Well, it would depend on when you want one. I'm selling them on a first pay first serve basis. I'm down to my last ones and I have more people saving up for them than I can serve, but I do still have unsold stock at the moment.

Keep in mind though, even though its 400mW, the visibility is next to none. It'd show up well with nightvision, and I've actually had inquiries into them being used for nightvision illuminators, but to the naked eye you can't even see it at all past a few feet. No chance in hell you'll be able to see the beam.

Also, if you've never owned a high power (class IIIB) laser before, I would not recommend starting with a 400mW near-IR laser, and I'm not sure if I would even be okay with selling you one. IMO, first getting used to a good >100mW greenie is pretty much requisite before trying to handle a 400mW anything.

 

[mfosterusmc]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

Pseudo look here whats do you think of this deal for a first laser >> FS: CNI 100mw Green - $160 Shipped USA posted by N00B

 

[Ashton]

Re: Looking for Green or Red 200mW or more laser..

Well, it would depend on when you want one. I'm selling them on a first pay first serve basis. I'm down to my last ones and I have more people saving up for them than I can serve, but I do still have unsold stock at the moment.

Any plans of getting more of these? I really want one, but it'll be a while before I can pay.

@ mfosterusmc:
You're gonna need a prety powerful laser for that. I can scorch paper (white paper) with my 200mw, but unless the target is explosive (read: matches or similar) there's almost no chance of it catchign fire. Some companies claim a 300mw will light a cigarette, but I have my doubts. becides, when a 20mw beam can blind you permanently, do you REALLY want a 300mw beal 4" from your eyes? maybe you have a spare set in the closite but I for one dont and wont pull this trick for anyone asking either, simply due to the danger. . . . . though that doesn't stop me from ofering them a 4000* blowtorch ocasionally to light up lol!