This is a little long; it is sort of my experience with the 50mw DX laser.
Hey, well I ordered 2 DX 50's ( not the true one ), one for my friend and one for me. Took about a month to come but once it did we fired these babies up. The beam and dot were identical for a short time. Later on in the evening mine dimmed allot. It dimmed not do the point were it was like a 5mw but it was noticeably smaller and shittier than his. I checked it out and found out that the spring was not making good contact with the battery (it was practically touching the casing). I did a little mod and got the spring straight (if anyone else has this problem I will make a tutorial to fix it). That seemed to get the power right back up. The next day it was a POS again and started to get me pissed off. This time it wasn’t the spring and I tried new batteries, the problem persisted. I kept it like this for a week thinking maybe it will start working again randomly. A week later it still was dim when we compared the two again, his was still much brighter. I said "wtf" it was $25 I’m just going to pot mod the shit outta it. I did the pot mod and got it to the highest it could possibly be. I got this thing working more powerful than ever! I put it down and tried it the next day, it was gayed again... The beam looked like before I did the pot mod. I read tons of threads and even tried freezing it for a little and that didn’t do crap. So I decided to re-pot mod it. I still couldn’t get it like the night before. The next week my friend and I decided to try lithium batteries. Went to the store and picked them up, at almost $3 a battery I was going to be really pissed if this made no difference... I stuck the batteries in and WAM! This thing made a beam so bright and powerful, it burned skin in less than 3 seconds! I popped a dark colored balloon from about 5ft away in less than 2 seconds. This thing was insane! We then tried the batteries in my friend’s laser and it made no difference whatsoever. Then we pot modded his laser and it was still no were near as bright as mine. Soon, I realized that this will probably burn the diode out quickly but I refused to turn it down because this was just too much fun! The laser seemed to be temperature affected. I could only use it outside in the cold for 2 minutes then it would start to get really poor, to the point were you can see the red dot coming out of it. To get it back, I would have to keep it at room temperature for about 15min and hold the button down for like 2 sets of 30 seconds. After the warming was done, it was back at optimum... Right now about 3 weeks since I got it, it is still going strong and solid once it is warmed up...
My questions are:
Why is the laser so temperature affected?
I don’t have glasses for it, I never made any direct beam sights and I turn my head away when I am trying to burn something. I was wondering if looking at the dot on a white wall 5-6 ft away bad for your eyes... It is really bright but I keep it moving and keep me blinking. I try not to look on it at the wall for extended periods but while pot modding and such I was looking at it for quite some time.
Since IR spreads in a cone is it bad for your eyes if someone is...say tracing your body with the laser from a distance away? I mean, it looks sweet when the beam is like directly above your head or around your body but I wasn’t sure if the IR spreads and is bad for your eyes.
I still never found out why my laser dimmed and didn’t get better until I pot modded it with new batteries. When I had that dimming issue I even tried his batteries and it still was weak for me but strong for him. Maybe my laser needed more power?
I also get different output depending on how hard the button is pressed. I can give it a light tape and it will be different then if I put a good amount for force into it...hmm
That’s it for now; I hope you enjoyed the story!
Hey, well I ordered 2 DX 50's ( not the true one ), one for my friend and one for me. Took about a month to come but once it did we fired these babies up. The beam and dot were identical for a short time. Later on in the evening mine dimmed allot. It dimmed not do the point were it was like a 5mw but it was noticeably smaller and shittier than his. I checked it out and found out that the spring was not making good contact with the battery (it was practically touching the casing). I did a little mod and got the spring straight (if anyone else has this problem I will make a tutorial to fix it). That seemed to get the power right back up. The next day it was a POS again and started to get me pissed off. This time it wasn’t the spring and I tried new batteries, the problem persisted. I kept it like this for a week thinking maybe it will start working again randomly. A week later it still was dim when we compared the two again, his was still much brighter. I said "wtf" it was $25 I’m just going to pot mod the shit outta it. I did the pot mod and got it to the highest it could possibly be. I got this thing working more powerful than ever! I put it down and tried it the next day, it was gayed again... The beam looked like before I did the pot mod. I read tons of threads and even tried freezing it for a little and that didn’t do crap. So I decided to re-pot mod it. I still couldn’t get it like the night before. The next week my friend and I decided to try lithium batteries. Went to the store and picked them up, at almost $3 a battery I was going to be really pissed if this made no difference... I stuck the batteries in and WAM! This thing made a beam so bright and powerful, it burned skin in less than 3 seconds! I popped a dark colored balloon from about 5ft away in less than 2 seconds. This thing was insane! We then tried the batteries in my friend’s laser and it made no difference whatsoever. Then we pot modded his laser and it was still no were near as bright as mine. Soon, I realized that this will probably burn the diode out quickly but I refused to turn it down because this was just too much fun! The laser seemed to be temperature affected. I could only use it outside in the cold for 2 minutes then it would start to get really poor, to the point were you can see the red dot coming out of it. To get it back, I would have to keep it at room temperature for about 15min and hold the button down for like 2 sets of 30 seconds. After the warming was done, it was back at optimum... Right now about 3 weeks since I got it, it is still going strong and solid once it is warmed up...
My questions are:
Why is the laser so temperature affected?
I don’t have glasses for it, I never made any direct beam sights and I turn my head away when I am trying to burn something. I was wondering if looking at the dot on a white wall 5-6 ft away bad for your eyes... It is really bright but I keep it moving and keep me blinking. I try not to look on it at the wall for extended periods but while pot modding and such I was looking at it for quite some time.
Since IR spreads in a cone is it bad for your eyes if someone is...say tracing your body with the laser from a distance away? I mean, it looks sweet when the beam is like directly above your head or around your body but I wasn’t sure if the IR spreads and is bad for your eyes.
I still never found out why my laser dimmed and didn’t get better until I pot modded it with new batteries. When I had that dimming issue I even tried his batteries and it still was weak for me but strong for him. Maybe my laser needed more power?
I also get different output depending on how hard the button is pressed. I can give it a light tape and it will be different then if I put a good amount for force into it...hmm
That’s it for now; I hope you enjoyed the story!