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FrozenGate by Avery

Review of 18 lasers from blab1391 --( at LPF 'KingKube' / Alan)

hakzaw1

hakzaw1

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More will be added..work in progess.
reviewing 2 sets of RGV pointers same and a 3rd set (gotten first )
the 10th laser came today -- quite nice-301 host (but best made I have ever seen) - the star-grating turns smoothly ... not much scatter.
*pros*
- star cap-
one 18650.
fairly good spot with grating off... and does not look like something is missing -in front.-
the star grate appears to be made well and has possibilities of adding it to other lasers..(its not very small)
comes with two keys.
high potential for re-use as a 18650 host.
afaik there are '303s' of same quality in a red-405 and myb a blue-- & some not so good.

(buying these as hosts and making our own RGB(&V) set would very nice--may exist already IDK.)



CONs-
there is little or no focus..momentary click must be held down.. ( we have ways around that)
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9 'pen-pointers' from KingKube.
first to win & arrive (and Alan's first listing of these at Bleepbay)
were the same as we have been seeing forever--14mm and while not heavy.. they felt Ok in my hands-- when the second 'trio' arrived they felt lighter- and were shorted and even thinner.

I guess anything to make more profit..

by eye all sets look about the same mW- consistant also was spot shapes and sizes.
No noticeable alignment issues..no 'crooked beams'.
If I had the time it takes I would be sniping every RGV trio at auction..
Fairly sure the price to beat is $3usd with free$hip.. SO MANY listed.. you can filter that down by looking only at the auctions and maybe some will sell cheap as "Make Offer'' in a very short time prices went from $3 each to 1$ each..mine came from blab1391 lowest 'trio' cost me $1.99-- all his listings are free$hip.. Setting up clock/time lapse camera and doing some 'murder' tests w/ these pen pointers..first will be w/ and w/o heat sink

''Lifetime'' is boring out two round finned Alley heat sink($4AixiZ) down from 12mm to 13 and 14mm.

there was once a seller of pen-pointer heat sinks but he is gone.. I prolly will need to remove black finish for better thermal transfer.. I am not wanting to run LPMs during all the murder tests--

I care too much about my RadX4 and Hyperion LPMs to risk harm--BUT can watch readouts from time to time. & take pics of them.
I am betting all three will outlast fresh aaa batts-- or the 532 will die first..then the 405 and predicting that I will be unable to murder the red..(StyroPyro knows a lot about murdering red Lasers..
 
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This would be a lot easier to understand if you wrote in complete sentences.
 
So, these RGV trios you are buying.....are they 2X AAA batteries? Not particularly interested in more of those, but some 301 or 303, especially in red might get me interested.
 
.. Before Golden Week I asked Alan to see what other wave length lasers are there in the 303 'style'. like I just got.. And I intend to ask about blank hosts.
But to answer Paul.. sorry for being confusing.
I had/have a project going on made with only penpointers-- and had enough for that.
Then Alan added the RGVs and I bid very low,, but still won twice for less than $3-on two and .$4 99 on the third set. maybe some RGV gloves;;

He has listed RGV aaa penpointers longer- I won 3 auctions (so 9 lasers)

And the 303 532 was a new item I bid IIRC 3.99usd, but won it for less. I have several '300' style lasers. This new one is better made and the others had no star burst caps.(even crappy ones)

. I got instantly bored with the stock pen-pointer 'caps' and I must say this cap is much better.
If the opening were bigger (its only 4.5mm) it might be useful on a motorized RGB star burst-like laser . The 532 beam exits at ~1.5 mm and so no clipping any .

stopping here.. more in the morning.
 
I bought a trio and found the following. Red 10mw, Green 41mw, 405nm 28.2mw. Sort of safe...except for the green.
The green varies from 20 ish when it is warm to 41 peak when cold. It has a nice beam. I am sure it has no infrared filter so 532nm
is certainly less than 41 mw in my sample.
$7.65 via ebay. I have some ebay red 2xAAA that are 100mw. They were about 7 or 8 dollars.
For those who want to experiment with lasers and are not into burning they are very inexpensive. Newwish hosts, of course.
That price is delivered btw. I have one 405nm pen that is 86mw. With a lens it burns. It is an excellent laser with very low divergence.
The eye is quite insensitive to 405nm so 28mw looks pretty lame...but it still lights fluorescent stuff up like mad. Good divergence too.

Highly recommended for all laser lovers and beginners too. Remember, survival laser sells excellent goggles. GET SOME!

I should add, I am really loving the 488nm and 505nm lasers that LED Museum reviewed. They cost more than cheap pens.
They need 18650 lithium cells. But they focus and especially in the case of the 488nm they burn too! At 60 dollars or so I
favor them over any pen I have ever owned. They are epic. And so beautiful too! Get em while you can!!!
 
paul1598419 said:
So, these RGV trios you are buying.....are they 2X AAA batteries? Not particularly interested in more of those, but some 301 or 303, especially in red might get me interested.
Click to expand...

I scored a couple of 303 style reds for 19.95 each. I fat fingered it...they were 9.95 each without battery and charger. But I failed hard
and got the deathfire and death charger too! I threw them both in the trash!!!
The lasers accommodate 18650 or 18350 cells depending on the sections installed. The people I bought the 505nm laser from
that said it took 18650 cells when it actually used 18350 cells sent me 2 18350 cells which I use in the reds!!! Winning!!!!!!

180mw on the laserbee 2. when the cap is screwed on tightly a perfect infinity beam. Loosen to burn. Just be sure NOT to get the
batt and charger!
 
cistercian said:
I scored a couple of 303 style reds for 19.95 each. I fat fingered it...they were 9.95 each without battery and charger. But I failed hard
and got the deathfire and death charger too! I threw them both in the trash!!!
The lasers accommodate 18650 or 18350 cells depending on the sections installed. The people I bought the 505nm laser from
that said it took 18650 cells when it actually used 18350 cells sent me 2 18350 cells which I use in the reds!!! Winning!!!!!!

180mw on the laserbee 2. when the cap is screwed on tightly a perfect infinity beam. Loosen to burn. Just be sure NOT to get the
batt and charger!
Click to expand...

Hey Cistercian- glad you are still having fun with the waterproof lasers. Nice to see they came through with batteries.
So you got a 180mW 303? Red? That's pretty good for a 301-303.

Cheap battery chargers and Poopfire batteries? Arrrrrgh. I got a pair with my "1000 mW Gatling 450 nm"-which may be near that given how it instantly creates smoke on wood-and causes matches to light instantly. I got exactly 1 use out of one of them. Luckily, I replaced the plastic charger with Nitecore electronic charger (learned from this forum) which gave an ERROR message and would not try and charge it. Otherwise it might have been renamed to CAUSEFIRE.
 
I picked up another 650nm 303 laser for $9.95. I really didn't need it, but since it was so cheap and I may be able to access the driver and increase the diode current. Depending on the driver it should be capable of doing at least 200 mW.

I would like to measure the wavelength on these so called 488nm lasers. I have a feeling they may be higher than 488nm. Many of these diodes were as high as 492nm.
 
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Since I started this.. I got from Alan 3x3 rgv trios, one 303 405nm 85mW & it is a burner w/ another lens needed.
Alan sent samples of two blue mini labbies 500mW as-is --no doubt they can be 'turned-up' & one is TTL the other analog. Then he sources the 532/400(<to be verified) line modules at 13mm and has them below the last sale price at Goldy.. & his have a plug at the end of the power leads(from the diver board).. I have two of them coming and will review with 3 of same from Goldy. I am betting <200mW..
 
paul1598419 said:
I picked up another 650nm 303 laser for $9.95. I really didn't need it, but since it was so cheap and I may be able to access the driver and increase the diode current. Depending on the driver it should be capable of doing at least 200 mW.

I would like to measure the wavelength on these so called 488nm lasers. I have a feeling they may be higher than 488nm. Many of these diodes were as high as 492nm.
Click to expand...

I hope you buy one and measure it too. My 2 look cyan to me. I service high end production color printers for a living...and am very
good at color perception. They look truly cyan with a perceptible wavelength difference between the 2 I have...but it is not much.
The 505nm lasers I have seem to vary much more. One is very short, one might be nearly 515nm.

I priced spectrometers. I was sad....

I have too much money in camera/lenses, guns, and night vision/FLIR. I trust LED Museums measurements and accept that a range of
wavelengths may be the norm.

ETA. You should order one of the 488nm pointers. At 50 to 60 dollars they are a bargain, and you can see for yourself!
I love mine!!!
 
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Well, you don't need a spectromer to tell the wavelenght - you can do it with a know good grating and rulers.

If you're not 100% sure about your grating you can test it if you have a laser of known wavelength. The upside there is that many of us actually do: All 532 nm DPSS lasers have a very accurate wavelength since the output is the (doubled) light from an atomic transition line.

Even if you get the cheapest crappy possible 532 nm laser where all specs like output power, divergence etc are completely wrong, the wavelength will still be correct. It's not goint to be 531 or 533, it'll be 532 on the dot since that's just doubled 1064 from a solid state laser, and cannot be anything else.

So in this case you can use your cat-toy to actually align a very precise system of measuring wavelength :)
 
Benm said:
Well, you don't need a spectromer to tell the wavelenght - you can do it with a know good grating and rulers.

If you're not 100% sure about your grating you can test it if you have a laser of known wavelength. The upside there is that many of us actually do: All 532 nm DPSS lasers have a very accurate wavelength since the output is the (doubled) light from an atomic transition line.

Even if you get the cheapest crappy possible 532 nm laser where all specs like output power, divergence etc are completely wrong, the wavelength will still be correct. It's not goint to be 531 or 533, it'll be 532 on the dot since that's just doubled 1064 from a solid state laser, and cannot be anything else.

So in this case you can use your cat-toy to actually align a very precise system of measuring wavelength :)
Click to expand...
I have several 532nm DPSS lasers...you are correct as they make a great frequency standard! I have zero gratings however.
Can you post the formula for this too? I can always use an old CD for a grating I guess but I need the math to make it work.

Sttropyro made a vid on this some time ago...but I can't find it tired on a friday night.

ETA...Utrecht? Very cool. I have always wanted to visit there! I have talked to a few of your countryman on amateur radio.
 
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Charging 26650 cells in my new skyrc mc3000 (Received today)...for the big jetlasers of course! It is like a MAHA 9000 for all the cells....
 
You cannot trust the cheapest 532nm lasers as I have two that do multiple lines. One has four lines and the other has six. They are spaced about 4nm apart. That being the case, it is possible to get one that lases on a different line than 532.14nm. I would use a more expensive laser to use as 532nm. I have one that does 1350 mW that is spot on.

It is true that the main line is 532.14nm, so lasers like this tend to lase close to that line. But, it isn't something you can depend on.


BTW, I got that 650nm laser and it measures 211 mW. It states on the label <200 mW, but that is obviously not the case with mine. Not too shabby for $10.00.

Also, there have been many threads over the years showing how to measure wavelengths with a diffraction grating. Before I got my first spectrometer, I bought a 1000 l/mm piece of transmission grating about 12 inches by 8 inches. I used to cut pieces off of it to measure wavelengths. But, to get the most accurate measurement you need to use a tape measure and set it up to be about at least 15 feet away from the surface you will be measuring the 1st order maxima on.
 
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