- Joined
- Jun 23, 2010
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Ordered several items from TinkerTavern, including 488nm and 561nm pen style lasers which were among the first items shipped. My photography-fu is weak, and I'm currently away from home, but here are some phone pictures of the new lasers projected onto an off-white wall. Diffraction caps to diffuse the intensity across the camera image for brightness balancing.
First image showing the cyan 448nm and the yellow-green 561nm in comparison to a Laserglow Galileo Pro 532 for color reference (bright spot to the right of the green diffraction pattern).
I've been in and out of the laser hobby for the past 20 years, and i recall some of these non 640/660nm or 532nm wavelengths being unobtanium for a starving student, so either i got older and employment, or the cost of various wavelengths have finally reached attainable levels (maybe both!)
The color of the 488nm is a nice cyan that is distinctly a lighter shade than a 445nm. TinkerTavern doesn't have the most complete laser specifications listed for most of the offerings, but here it appears that the 488nm is a direct diode, and the 561 appears to have a very circular gaussian like beam profile that makes me think it is a DPSS like traditional 532nm.
Here is another image, again with the tinkertavern 488 and 561 with diffraction gratings, a 532 nd:yag shg reference, and this time i've got some LEP flashlights, again trying to play with color reference and phone camera exposure. The white light is an Nlighted L3 on "low", and the red is an Nlighted L2 on "high" with a Nightcore red filter. I would very much call 561 a shade of green, albeit on the yellow side of green, whereas the 532 is a pretty "pure" shade of green; however, my phone camera is not doing the yellowness of 561 justice and the photos here make it look more green that it appears to my eyes.
I received a 405, 488, and 561, all in the "pen" style. The "core" and "valkyrie" lasers that i ordered were originally delayed, but have since shipped and should be here next week. I've had 405nm before, so i didn't feature it here, and it doesn't render well on my phone anyway.
Here are a couple of random observations about these pen style lasers:
- These are "pair of AAA" style pens
- I tried NiMH 1.2V rechargeable batteries and only the 561nm worked with NiMH. Alkaline were required to get the 405 and 488 working.
- I was able to chat with TinkerTavern directly on their website's chat (surprisingly responsive!) and was able to clarify that 1.2V rechargeable are not expected to work. I'd suggest that this information should be more directly listed on the website. I got the suggestion to use a single 3.7V LiIon and a "dummy" as a rechargeable option, or it was confirmed that the "1.5V rechargeable AAA" LiIon batteries should work nicely as a direct replacement for traditional alkaline.
- The polarity of the pens is inconsistent between the different lasers. the laser pens themselves are not marked or labeled, just a shiny black enamel body with brass accents. My chat with TinkerTavern indicated that all the pens are reverse-polarity-protected, so that accidently putting batteries case-positive in a case-negative laser (or vice versa) will not cause the magic smoke to be released (phew!)
-- So far i can confirm the following polarities:
--- The 405 and 488 pens are case-negative (positive battery inserted to the driver contact) and required the alkaline batteries (1.5V) and did not work with 1.2V NiMH. I tried both polarities and did not fry the laser, so it does appear reverse polarity project is working.
--- The 561 pen laser is case-positive (negative battery inserted, button top in contact with the tail cap) and worked with fully charged eneloop pro NiMH. I initially tried case-negative and the laser did not self-immolate, so even though this is definitely a different driver than in the 405 and 488 direct diode lasers, it does seem that it also is reverse polarity protected.
- all of the pen lasers had diffraction grating ("star caps"?) in the boxes when they arrived. I don't think that was listed as included on the webpage, so either they were a freebie to make up for the shipping delays, or perhaps they just come with these lasers. i'm not complaining and it turns out it was something neat to make the beam shot more interesting than simply completely saturated white spot with colored halo in the pictures.
- i did ask if there were an cylindrical lens or line generating diffraction gratings available, and TinkerTavern said "not yet" but it has apparently been somewhat frequently requested. The laser threading and diffraction attachements i think are standard M11x0.5, so it should be easy to use the appropriately sized aftermarket items to attach different lens elements to the lasers. I think this is a larger thread standard than what you might find in a classic "aixiz" module or the (G2?) lens that i have on a Survival Laser, which is the smaller M9x0.5. I believe this M11x0.5 is the thread standard across all the tinkertavern lasers, pens, valkyrie, and core models. I will try to confirm once the remaining lasers are delivered.
First image showing the cyan 448nm and the yellow-green 561nm in comparison to a Laserglow Galileo Pro 532 for color reference (bright spot to the right of the green diffraction pattern).
I've been in and out of the laser hobby for the past 20 years, and i recall some of these non 640/660nm or 532nm wavelengths being unobtanium for a starving student, so either i got older and employment, or the cost of various wavelengths have finally reached attainable levels (maybe both!)
The color of the 488nm is a nice cyan that is distinctly a lighter shade than a 445nm. TinkerTavern doesn't have the most complete laser specifications listed for most of the offerings, but here it appears that the 488nm is a direct diode, and the 561 appears to have a very circular gaussian like beam profile that makes me think it is a DPSS like traditional 532nm.
Here is another image, again with the tinkertavern 488 and 561 with diffraction gratings, a 532 nd:yag shg reference, and this time i've got some LEP flashlights, again trying to play with color reference and phone camera exposure. The white light is an Nlighted L3 on "low", and the red is an Nlighted L2 on "high" with a Nightcore red filter. I would very much call 561 a shade of green, albeit on the yellow side of green, whereas the 532 is a pretty "pure" shade of green; however, my phone camera is not doing the yellowness of 561 justice and the photos here make it look more green that it appears to my eyes.
I received a 405, 488, and 561, all in the "pen" style. The "core" and "valkyrie" lasers that i ordered were originally delayed, but have since shipped and should be here next week. I've had 405nm before, so i didn't feature it here, and it doesn't render well on my phone anyway.
Here are a couple of random observations about these pen style lasers:
- These are "pair of AAA" style pens
- I tried NiMH 1.2V rechargeable batteries and only the 561nm worked with NiMH. Alkaline were required to get the 405 and 488 working.
- I was able to chat with TinkerTavern directly on their website's chat (surprisingly responsive!) and was able to clarify that 1.2V rechargeable are not expected to work. I'd suggest that this information should be more directly listed on the website. I got the suggestion to use a single 3.7V LiIon and a "dummy" as a rechargeable option, or it was confirmed that the "1.5V rechargeable AAA" LiIon batteries should work nicely as a direct replacement for traditional alkaline.
- The polarity of the pens is inconsistent between the different lasers. the laser pens themselves are not marked or labeled, just a shiny black enamel body with brass accents. My chat with TinkerTavern indicated that all the pens are reverse-polarity-protected, so that accidently putting batteries case-positive in a case-negative laser (or vice versa) will not cause the magic smoke to be released (phew!)
-- So far i can confirm the following polarities:
--- The 405 and 488 pens are case-negative (positive battery inserted to the driver contact) and required the alkaline batteries (1.5V) and did not work with 1.2V NiMH. I tried both polarities and did not fry the laser, so it does appear reverse polarity project is working.
--- The 561 pen laser is case-positive (negative battery inserted, button top in contact with the tail cap) and worked with fully charged eneloop pro NiMH. I initially tried case-negative and the laser did not self-immolate, so even though this is definitely a different driver than in the 405 and 488 direct diode lasers, it does seem that it also is reverse polarity protected.
- all of the pen lasers had diffraction grating ("star caps"?) in the boxes when they arrived. I don't think that was listed as included on the webpage, so either they were a freebie to make up for the shipping delays, or perhaps they just come with these lasers. i'm not complaining and it turns out it was something neat to make the beam shot more interesting than simply completely saturated white spot with colored halo in the pictures.
- i did ask if there were an cylindrical lens or line generating diffraction gratings available, and TinkerTavern said "not yet" but it has apparently been somewhat frequently requested. The laser threading and diffraction attachements i think are standard M11x0.5, so it should be easy to use the appropriately sized aftermarket items to attach different lens elements to the lasers. I think this is a larger thread standard than what you might find in a classic "aixiz" module or the (G2?) lens that i have on a Survival Laser, which is the smaller M9x0.5. I believe this M11x0.5 is the thread standard across all the tinkertavern lasers, pens, valkyrie, and core models. I will try to confirm once the remaining lasers are delivered.
