My review of Laser 301

[vortish]

I recently purchased a laser 301 523 nm from ebay... It got here today and i slapped a 18650 turned the key and viola it turned on and is bright... dare say I think just a tad more than the 5mw that the seller claimed.. It probably in the neighborhood of 20mw or more not enough to burn like the add said but hey for 8 bucks you get your money out of it.. I put it up to my laser pen 523nw that is suppose to be 5mw and I think it probably close to it and the 301 is twice if not three times more bright than my little double AA pen.. I know more juice comes out of the 18650 than the AA but I really think that the 301's that are being bought in masses by Us laser nuts are just a tad overspec.. I think any were between 10 to 70 mw over what they are suppose to be.. Is the done on purpose or Chinese not caring were they set the pot.. My opinion is the latter. I will post some beam shots when I get a camera that does not suck!


Edit.. The safety sticker on the laser states output power at 200mw I do not think this is correct!

 

[xirrious]

532nm

Sticker more likely says <200mw yes?

 

[vortish]

Yes that is correct

 

[xirrious]

Yeah they are pretty vague with the output stickers I've found lol. But for 8 bucks sounds like you got a great deal still!

Photos pls!

 

[NightExplorer96]

Nice review!

I do agree with xirrious though, pictures would help haha.

-Alex

 

[vortish]

will work on it

 

[vortish]

[/IMG]

sorry such bad quality my phone cam sucks

 

[BurningLaserGuy]

sorry such bad quality my phone cam sucks

Yea and because of your low quality photos I can't see what website is on your laptop...looks like lpf
Just joking^
Just 8$?!?! I was expecting <5mW but this is a good deal...

 

[vortish]

yea I am thinking its more towards 20 plus mw and yea 8 dollars plus No shipping shipping was free and got here in a week and a half

and yes LPF on the laptop its alway on lpf DUH! jk

 

[BurningLaserGuy]

20mW of green plus IR.

 

[JayC]

Well, the only downside to the Laser 301 in my opinion is that it doesn't come with an IR filter. You need to be careful with that thing. IR is nasty.

 

[mortuus]

i would throw that garbage away dont care how many mw it outputs.

 

[Wallyl]

I have two 301 E-Bay 532nm Lasers....they both work fine and while they might not be in the same league as others, it's hard to beat the price for a decent Astronomical pointer. I have read others who have an LPM show they are at 70~80mw, however that includes the IR "leakage". I have on order a 80mw 532nm from Laserbtb...will be interesting to see how it compares. I have noticed some "spill" when using outside on a dark night---no doubt a better lens would greatly improve the 301's performance. Has anyone ever upgraded one?

 

[Marco Polo]

How is the beam profile? If you diverge it all the way out, is it TEM00 (circular) or something else? The 10-dollar lasers I bought both have really bad beam specs, while more expensive variants don't.

 

[Alaskan]

I bought over 50 of them and their outputs vary from 40mw to 120 mw, the higher output the exception. Average output (with IR leakage, I don't know how much) is 60mw. I tested more of them and found the average was lower than 70mw, although a good number of them would do that or more.

Mine appear to be TEM00, a round output beam. If yours has the same module mine has, the plastic lens can be replaced with a glass 6mm one and should put out more power. There is an ebay seller in China selling glass ones with a focal length that will work here:

5pcs 6mm 532nm Green Laser Module Diode Flat Convex Beam Collimation Focus Lens | eBay

Here's a photo of the modules in mine:

 

[starlight]

I have a couple of these that have stopped working. Anyone know what driver these are using (amps output also) and if they can be re-used?