Post any deals you find ;)

[AUTO XX]

I bought 3 "5mW" green pens at $5.19 apiece with free shipping.
They were going to be gifts but one of the three happened to be overspec.
The beam on the third one is easily visible in a lit room and gets even brighter after being on for ~45 seconds.
The price is $5.99 each now but it is still very worth it for an inexpensive gift. If you happen to cherry pick for your own collection, no one will blame you
Powerful 5mW 5 mW 532nm Green Beam Laser Pen Pointer on eBay.ca (item 150523741827 end time 22-Dec-10 17:48:45 EST)

These are 405nm "5mW" pens selling for $6.78 each shipped, I have only bought one of them but they are usually VERY overspec so again, careful with your eyes.
http://cgi.ebay.ca/New-5mW-405nm-Vi...389?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0b74827d
There are always new deals coming on, in retrospect, I should have posted this thread when the greens were on for $5.19 each shipped but I wanted to see if they were worth it before saying yay or nay.

Post away guys, doesn't matter if it is drivers, batteries, knick-knacks, pointers, or curiosities. I have found a few deals this way from people posting on this site, just wanted to have a place to post any I find and keep them all in one thread.
Happy hunting!

-Auto

 

[Prototype]

You do know there is a deals and discount section?

Man, he posted this in the Deals and Discounts section :na:

 

[daguin]

That is what this board is. Why would we need a thread in a board doing what the board is already doing?

Peace.
dave

 

[Mohrenberg]

This thread is a great idea! we should ask avery to make a section dedicated solely to different deals and discounts people find! it would be awesome!

 

[AUTO XX]

lol shaddap, it was mostly just so people (like me) could get a notice to the subscribed thread when someone did find a good deal.
I can't browse EVERYTHING on the site ^_^
As it is, I usually only find the good deals about 2 weeks after they have been posted on the forum.
All this was about is convenience.

 

[Misellus]

I bought 3 "5mW" green pens at $5.19 apiece with free shipping.
They were going to be gifts but one of the three happened to be overspec.
The beam on the third one is easily visible in a lit room and gets even brighter after being on for ~45 seconds.

Sounds like the $6 ebay pointer I got. 93mW after it warms up

M-

 

[AUTO XX]

Holy crap, congrats bro. That's a good find
It is very worth it to get 10 "5mW" lasers in the hopes of getting one that is THAT overspec.
The 100mW laser prices would have to take a dive to be able to compete :crackup:

 

[Misellus]

To give the whole story:
It was only 93mW for a few seconds, then it dropped back to 80 (still a nice number for a "5mW"). It switches brightness like this fairly often.
It does not have an IR filter so figure at least 20 of that is IR.
I have a homemade TEC based lasermeter calibrated using a laser that Dave tested last month.
The laser is not potmodded but I am overvolting it by quite a bit (2 10440 LiIo rather than 2 AAA).
The ebay seller was bigger-ant if anyone else wants to try their luck. Their price has gone up to $7 though. I ordered another one but have not received it yet.

When I first received it, the output sucked. On new alkaline batteries you could barely see the dot more than a few feet away in a lighted room. I was going to throw it away and order another one from someone else when I looked at the 10440s I had also just received from DX and decided "what the heck" since it was trash anyway. It was dim for a second, then a little brighter, suddenly it was very bright...and the cat attacked it (I was NOT trying to entice the cat, he saw it from another room and pounced, I DO NOT use this laser to play with the cat). It goes through the dim/little brighter/very bright sequence every time it needs to warm up. If it's already warm it goes straight to very bright. The barrel does get warm so I have to watch the duty cycle but I can run it for a couple minutes first. I plan to make an exterior heat sink to mount on the barrel, just haven't yet.

I know I'm shortening the life by overvolting it but it was trash anyway: too dim to be usable. It's lasted 6 weeks so far using it a couple minutes per day.

Misellus

 

[AUTO XX]

Pfft, shortening the life of a <$10 laser to get a >80mW laser is a good deal in my books. ^_^