Welcome to Laser Pointer Forums - discuss green laser pointers, blue laser pointers, and all types of lasers

LPF Donation via Stripe | LPF Donation - Other Methods

Links below open in new window

ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Multifunction power loss?

LS_Danger

New member
Joined
Apr 4, 2019
Messages
2
Points
1
Hi All: I'm new here and found this forum while looking for my first powerful laser - great place!. I searched for the answer, but could not find an easy explanation. I see that many people talk about getting single operation instead of multifunction because of power loss in multifunction. How much power do you sacrifice?

If there is no easy rule of thumb and it is highly dependent on a particular laser, I'm looking at the Sanwu 7w. I was surprised that I could not find this info on their site with the product info, but it's not there. I'd like to have a lower setting, but I'll just get a cheap laser if it is too much loss. Thanks!
 





diachi

0
Joined
Feb 22, 2008
Messages
9,700
Points
113
You don't "lose" the power, it just turns the power down. You don't always want 7W blasting out the end, can always turn it back up.

Not a Sanwu, but the one unit I have with that option uses PWM at 50% duty cycle to reduce the power so you end up with roughly half the average power.
 
Joined
Sep 20, 2013
Messages
17,238
Points
113
There are some sellers that offer a dual power or the ability to reduce power on handhelds. I also have the dual power one that diachi spoke of. That one came from laser pointer stores.
 

LS_Danger

New member
Joined
Apr 4, 2019
Messages
2
Points
1
You don't "lose" the power, it just turns the power down. You don't always want 7W blasting out the end, can always turn it back up.

Not a Sanwu, but the one unit I have with that option uses PWM at 50% duty cycle to reduce the power so you end up with roughly half the average power.

Thank you for replying. I understand that multifunction gives you the option to use the laser at lower power settings. Are you saying that the "full power" setting on a multifunction laser produces the same amount of power as a laser that was built as a single operation laser? I posted this question because I've seen people comment about their purchase choice and that they chose single over multi because they get a more "powerful" laser if you buy a single (not wanting to "sacrifice burn power", etc.). It was not an economic decision for them, but one of performance. Their belief is that the multifinction feature somehow causes a slight power drop.

I'd be happy to hear they are wrong because it makes the choice easy for me if multifunction has the same output as a single. It didn't make sense to me that multi necessitated a power loss, but I've seen numerous comments about this and thought I'd ask.
 




Top