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This is the product itself:
PriceAngels <150mW 405nm Violet Laser
And here's my review:
I purchased about 12 days ago (Jan 9th, 2011) 3 green lasers and one purple laser. (405nm)
Well, I got it in the mail yesterday and have been playing with it off and on until I had a chance to REALLY review this thing.
I have to say my initial impressions are very positive so far. There's gripes I have, but it was only $25 to be fair... And it works QUITE well.
But since a picture is worth at least 1000 words, I'll let some pictures do the talking.
This is the box it came in. Nothing amazing, but it does the job.
Oohhh... Pretty silver pen-looking thing
Danger! Could be decent... Err I mean Could be Dangerous! Output <150mW.
Well, for 33$ I would expect maybe 20-30... But I'll let you keep reading.
And what's this? It's a GREEN laser? There's got to be some mistake...
The business end.
Oh, and a little side action too.
Le Bouton. (That's button in English. lol)
Okay, just talking about the button for a minute: The button is a very grip-based rubber. It's not very hard to push down and doesn't have a huge travel range when it comes to the depression of the Fifteen Hundred Megawatt Price Angels Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button.
However, please be aware that the effects of prolonged exposure to the button are not part of this review.
More business end without the lens:
There is a spring that goes down where the diode is placed, and pushes against the actual lens cap itself to try and maintain friction to keep the lens from coming out of focus.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do a very good job. The spring offers very little actual resistance, and as a result, the laser comes out of focus very quickly. In addition, the laser has very wide treads so that a single turn of the lens head VERY much changes the focal point of the laser itself.
This is really my biggest gripe about the laser itself - the focusing head is far to easy to turn, and also has next to no resistance... And the threads themselves are quite wide so there's a lot of head movement inside the host which means a little bump throws the laser very quickly out of focus.
The host itself however feels pretty solid for the most part. It's quite solid in the hand, pretty heavy without batteries and even more solid without, and the batteries don't flail about inside the host when you move it around. I would be comfortable having this in a pocket (Like a shirt pocket) and actually did carry it around with me at work today.
Getting onto the beam/dot itself:
This is without the lens on at all. (Pure diode) and I notice there's something on the diode screen. I'm not adventurous enough to touch it, only because I don't actually care enough. I could probably get it a little cleaner with some very light alcohol (Maybe some rum? Vodka? Okay, I kid... if that were around this would be a very different review ha ha) and cotton swabs.
When I put the lens back on though, it looks AMAZING. This pic is really probably one of my favorite dot profiles. It's not focused down very much; this dot is about 3 inches across. (7.Cm? Something like that)
Now here's the OTHER side of things that I noticed.
The divergence, when you can get it focused properly, is actually PRETTY good.
This dot is taken at around 20 feet or so. If you look two pictures down, you can see the laser on the table and I'm standing at the lightswtich I was aiming at. Each one of the tiles on the floor is a foot, corner to corner and I'm at least 5 feet away from the stairs. The laser is on the table, an additional 15 tiles or so away.
You can see the light switch on the left for the dot-size comparison. If someone feels so obliged, to make a rough estimate as to what this divergence is, I'd be appreciative
And of course as always:
BEAM SHOTS!
This is me looking from the lightswitch into the kitchen, and this is the picture I was talking about before where you can see a rough distance.
This is looking in the opposite direction. (From the laser into the hallway)
I can probably take some comparison shots if anyone requests them... I have my 445 1.4W blue, and a ~250mW 532 greenie for comparison but I'm afraid it wouldn't be much of a comparison.
So then some of you might be saying:
"Dave. Where are the videos? "
Well, you might not be actually because that'd mean you know my name, and there's only a handful of people here that know my name... So that'd just be creepy. You stalkers.
Anyway, so you might be saying "Enigmahack, where are the videos?" or "How does it burn?"
Well, of course I'm going to show that too!
Here's a match-burning video. I'll be really honest... I was EXTREMELY surprised as to how fast this lit up.
I wasn't totally expecting it. Now to be fair, I know the wavelength does help, as does the fact that this dot IS being focused down to a little point... but wow. My greenie doesn't burn this fast when focused and it's 250mW more or less.
The next video: I'm offering up a disclaimer. I did take this video just to show how fast this light turns off. The house in the background: I know my neighbors and they're not at home. I made sure, their car wasn't in the driveway, and while their porchlight was on, I stood around for a few minutes to make sure there was no-one there.
In addition, I made sure that I started with the laser into the sky and moved the laser down into the lamp, not the other way around.
I don't know the power of this laser, but the OTHER caveat that I'd like to add is that it was/it pouring rain out. The divergence would be all messed up if I DID accidentally shoot it into a window. And the house is across the street. And the maximum possible for this laser to be (within all probability) is 150mW though not likely. Etc.
I'm still partially expecting to hear someone tell me about how irresponsible it is, etc. etc. but at the same time, I've seen MUCH dumber things done, and I took as many safety precautions as I could to ensure I could do this safely, otherwise I wouldn't have done it at all.
Anyway, with that disclaimer out of the way, here's the lights-out video:
Other things to note about this laser:
I don't know the output. I don't have a LPM YET. When I DO get one, I'm going to be metering ALL of the lasers I've reviewed and put the updated power into the threads/blog reviews to ensure there's accuracy there.
There's no real duty cycle given or specified. I've run it for 3-4 minutes straight on a couple of occasions and have noticed absolutely *NO* heat from it whatsoever.
I don't like how my eyes start to fluoresce when I'm using the laser far away, but I understand it's a function of the wavelength. I try and lower the focus to infinity as much as I can with far-away walls and unless I'm hitting a brownish wood, I can't see anything through my safety goggles, and without it's a blurry purple spot. It's really unfortunate because I like this laser but it's literally... well hard to see ha ha.
I also considered for a VERY brief moment pot-modding this laser but at the same time:
A - Not worth a dead diode.
B - It's bright enough (Or unbright, however you want to call it)
C - It's dangerous enough as it is. I don't need more potential damage happening with something I can barely see
D - It seems stable right now. I don't want to mess with that.
There's a bunch of other reasons I COULD and don't want to, but I'm happy with it the way it is.
Overall, I really do like the laser. The lens could be a little better in that the focus doesn't change SO much when you twist, and it would be a little harder to twist. Also the threads could be a little tighter together too so there's no additional movement.
Other than that though, I would definitely purchase this laser again without hesitation... And for $25 or whatever it is right now, it's a VERY cheap start to getting into a pre-built violet laser with decent power.
PriceAngels <150mW 405nm Violet Laser
And here's my review:
I purchased about 12 days ago (Jan 9th, 2011) 3 green lasers and one purple laser. (405nm)
Well, I got it in the mail yesterday and have been playing with it off and on until I had a chance to REALLY review this thing.
I have to say my initial impressions are very positive so far. There's gripes I have, but it was only $25 to be fair... And it works QUITE well.
But since a picture is worth at least 1000 words, I'll let some pictures do the talking.
This is the box it came in. Nothing amazing, but it does the job.
Oohhh... Pretty silver pen-looking thing
Danger! Could be decent... Err I mean Could be Dangerous! Output <150mW.
Well, for 33$ I would expect maybe 20-30... But I'll let you keep reading.
And what's this? It's a GREEN laser? There's got to be some mistake...
The business end.
Oh, and a little side action too.
Le Bouton. (That's button in English. lol)
Okay, just talking about the button for a minute: The button is a very grip-based rubber. It's not very hard to push down and doesn't have a huge travel range when it comes to the depression of the Fifteen Hundred Megawatt Price Angels Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button.
However, please be aware that the effects of prolonged exposure to the button are not part of this review.
More business end without the lens:
There is a spring that goes down where the diode is placed, and pushes against the actual lens cap itself to try and maintain friction to keep the lens from coming out of focus.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do a very good job. The spring offers very little actual resistance, and as a result, the laser comes out of focus very quickly. In addition, the laser has very wide treads so that a single turn of the lens head VERY much changes the focal point of the laser itself.
This is really my biggest gripe about the laser itself - the focusing head is far to easy to turn, and also has next to no resistance... And the threads themselves are quite wide so there's a lot of head movement inside the host which means a little bump throws the laser very quickly out of focus.
The host itself however feels pretty solid for the most part. It's quite solid in the hand, pretty heavy without batteries and even more solid without, and the batteries don't flail about inside the host when you move it around. I would be comfortable having this in a pocket (Like a shirt pocket) and actually did carry it around with me at work today.
Getting onto the beam/dot itself:
This is without the lens on at all. (Pure diode) and I notice there's something on the diode screen. I'm not adventurous enough to touch it, only because I don't actually care enough. I could probably get it a little cleaner with some very light alcohol (Maybe some rum? Vodka? Okay, I kid... if that were around this would be a very different review ha ha) and cotton swabs.
When I put the lens back on though, it looks AMAZING. This pic is really probably one of my favorite dot profiles. It's not focused down very much; this dot is about 3 inches across. (7.Cm? Something like that)
Now here's the OTHER side of things that I noticed.
The divergence, when you can get it focused properly, is actually PRETTY good.
This dot is taken at around 20 feet or so. If you look two pictures down, you can see the laser on the table and I'm standing at the lightswtich I was aiming at. Each one of the tiles on the floor is a foot, corner to corner and I'm at least 5 feet away from the stairs. The laser is on the table, an additional 15 tiles or so away.
You can see the light switch on the left for the dot-size comparison. If someone feels so obliged, to make a rough estimate as to what this divergence is, I'd be appreciative
And of course as always:
BEAM SHOTS!
This is me looking from the lightswitch into the kitchen, and this is the picture I was talking about before where you can see a rough distance.
This is looking in the opposite direction. (From the laser into the hallway)
I can probably take some comparison shots if anyone requests them... I have my 445 1.4W blue, and a ~250mW 532 greenie for comparison but I'm afraid it wouldn't be much of a comparison.
So then some of you might be saying:
"Dave. Where are the videos? "
Well, you might not be actually because that'd mean you know my name, and there's only a handful of people here that know my name... So that'd just be creepy. You stalkers.
Anyway, so you might be saying "Enigmahack, where are the videos?" or "How does it burn?"
Well, of course I'm going to show that too!
Here's a match-burning video. I'll be really honest... I was EXTREMELY surprised as to how fast this lit up.
I wasn't totally expecting it. Now to be fair, I know the wavelength does help, as does the fact that this dot IS being focused down to a little point... but wow. My greenie doesn't burn this fast when focused and it's 250mW more or less.
The next video: I'm offering up a disclaimer. I did take this video just to show how fast this light turns off. The house in the background: I know my neighbors and they're not at home. I made sure, their car wasn't in the driveway, and while their porchlight was on, I stood around for a few minutes to make sure there was no-one there.
In addition, I made sure that I started with the laser into the sky and moved the laser down into the lamp, not the other way around.
I don't know the power of this laser, but the OTHER caveat that I'd like to add is that it was/it pouring rain out. The divergence would be all messed up if I DID accidentally shoot it into a window. And the house is across the street. And the maximum possible for this laser to be (within all probability) is 150mW though not likely. Etc.
I'm still partially expecting to hear someone tell me about how irresponsible it is, etc. etc. but at the same time, I've seen MUCH dumber things done, and I took as many safety precautions as I could to ensure I could do this safely, otherwise I wouldn't have done it at all.
Anyway, with that disclaimer out of the way, here's the lights-out video:
Other things to note about this laser:
I don't know the output. I don't have a LPM YET. When I DO get one, I'm going to be metering ALL of the lasers I've reviewed and put the updated power into the threads/blog reviews to ensure there's accuracy there.
There's no real duty cycle given or specified. I've run it for 3-4 minutes straight on a couple of occasions and have noticed absolutely *NO* heat from it whatsoever.
I don't like how my eyes start to fluoresce when I'm using the laser far away, but I understand it's a function of the wavelength. I try and lower the focus to infinity as much as I can with far-away walls and unless I'm hitting a brownish wood, I can't see anything through my safety goggles, and without it's a blurry purple spot. It's really unfortunate because I like this laser but it's literally... well hard to see ha ha.
I also considered for a VERY brief moment pot-modding this laser but at the same time:
A - Not worth a dead diode.
B - It's bright enough (Or unbright, however you want to call it)
C - It's dangerous enough as it is. I don't need more potential damage happening with something I can barely see
D - It seems stable right now. I don't want to mess with that.
There's a bunch of other reasons I COULD and don't want to, but I'm happy with it the way it is.
Overall, I really do like the laser. The lens could be a little better in that the focus doesn't change SO much when you twist, and it would be a little harder to twist. Also the threads could be a little tighter together too so there's no additional movement.
Other than that though, I would definitely purchase this laser again without hesitation... And for $25 or whatever it is right now, it's a VERY cheap start to getting into a pre-built violet laser with decent power.
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