Review of the Tinker Lasers Valkyrie 488

[WizardG]

With my birthday coming up my wife said I should treat myself to a new laser (LOVE that woman!). I thought about a yellow pointer but I already have yellow. I saw that the Valkyrie 488 was on sale (and 250mW) and I didn't have that wavelength yet so.....

The package: The laser came well packaged.




The Box: A good deal nicer than expected



The contents: Inside the case I found the laser itself, batteries, a USB charger, goggles, a set of star caps, and a discount card for my next order.




The beam: My cell phone doesn't do the color justice. It it not this close to indigo IRL. More of a baby/sky blue to my eyes. 445 is nice but this is the blue I've wanted for years


The optics: Very clean optics as seen by the lack of anomalies in the defocused beam.


The nitty and the gritty: I got quite a bit more than I expected when I ordered the laser. I didn't expect the nice case, or batteries, or the charger, or goggles, or the star caps. The charger is a cheapie to be sure, but I wasn't expecting to find that in the box at all. I feel like I got a great deal more than I expected.

Customer service was also great. I wasn't 100% sure which way the batteries should go in. I recieved a call back about 20 minutes after leaving voice mail on their customer service line. It turns out I needn't have worried about letting the magic smoke out. I was told all of their drivers include reverse polarity protection (bonus points!).

Power was measured by my friend in the lab @ work at 241 mW and change, with a center wavelength of 487.2nm. The output seems almost single mode, but the lack of speckle makes me wonder.

My only complaint is the focusing ring. It's very low-profile and a bit difficult to use. If this were a multi-watt pointer I think I'd have to switch it off when focusing to avoid burning my fingertips. The focus ring is also a bit rattley: when loosened slightly it doesn't have that nice smooth feel to the threads. It feels loose and, well, rattles. I'm going to try a bit of teflon tape in the threads to see if that helps.

Overall I'm giving this a 9 out of 10. The focus ring is a bit of a PITA but I think I got great value for my $$. Tinker may just get more of my $$ in the future

 

[Giannis_TDM]

With my birthday coming up my wife said I should treat myself to a new laser (LOVE that woman!). I thought about a yellow pointer but I already have yellow. I saw that the Valkyrie 488 was on sale (and 250mW) and I didn't have that wavelength yet so.....

The package: The laser came well packaged.


View attachment 78043

The Box: A good deal nicer than expected

View attachment 78044

The contents: Inside the case I found the laser itself, batteries, a USB charger, goggles, a set of star caps, and a discount card for my next order.

View attachment 78045


The beam: My cell phone doesn't do the color justice. It it not this close to indigo IRL. More of a baby/sky blue to my eyes. 445 is nice but this is the blue I've wanted for years
View attachment 78046

The optics: Very clean optics as seen by the lack of anomalies in the defocused beam.
View attachment 78047

The nitty and the gritty: I got quite a bit more than I expected when I ordered the laser. I didn't expect the nice case, or batteries, or the charger, or goggles, or the star caps. The charger is a cheapie to be sure, but I wasn't expecting to find that in the box at all. I feel like I got a great deal more than I expected.

Customer service was also great. I wasn't 100% sure which way the batteries should go in. I recieved a call back about 20 minutes after leaving voice mail on their customer service line. It turns out I needn't have worried about letting the magic smoke out. I was told all of their drivers include reverse polarity protection (bonus points!).

Power was measured by my friend in the lab @ work at 241 mW and change, with a center wavelength of 487.2nm. The output seems almost single mode, but the lack of speckle makes me wonder.

My only complaint is the focusing ring. It's very low-profile and a bit difficult to use. If this were a multi-watt pointer I think I'd have to switch it off when focusing to avoid burning my fingertips. The focus ring is also a bit rattley: when loosened slightly it doesn't have that nice smooth feel to the threads. It feels loose and, well, rattles. I'm going to try a bit of teflon tape in the threads to see if that helps.

Overall I'm giving this a 9 out of 10. The focus ring is a bit of a PITA but I think I got great value for my $$. Tinker may just get more of my $$ in the future

Thank you for your review! I am the designer of the Valkyrie host, I will implement your feedback on any future host we partner up with Tinker for, Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

 

[Gryphon]

Very nice! I have the 573 Valkyrie and I too was not expecting all the extra goodies with the laser, definitely a nice touch. Still in awe of your host design Giannis, it’s quite the looker

 

[Giannis_TDM]

Very nice! I have the 573 Valkyrie and I too was not expecting all the extra goodies with the laser, definitely a nice touch. Still in awe of your host design Giannis, it’s quite the looker

Thank you! We went through a lot of itirations for the final design!

 

[CurtisOliver]

Thank you! We went through a lot of itirations for the final design!

I'm very happy with the Valkyrie host. It looks and feels great, of course it just gets better with yellow photons coming out of it as I have it as a 573nm unit.

 

[WizardG]

Thank you for your review! I am the designer of the Valkyrie host, I will implement your feedback on any future host we partner up with Tinker for, Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

Hi Giannis, sorry to nitpick one detail of what is, in every other aspect, an awesome host! I really like the heft of the stainless. It feels solid in the hand, like this is something that is going to last. And with this particular diode it has enough thermal mass for close to unlimited run time. Actually curious about just which 488nm diode is used in this pointer.

 

[Giannis_TDM]

Hi Giannis, sorry to nitpick one detail of what is, in every other aspect, an awesome host! I really like the heft of the stainless. It feels solid in the hand, like this is something that is going to last. And with this particular diode it has enough thermal mass for close to unlimited run time. Actually curious about just which 488nm diode is used in this pointer.

The diode itself is a secret hehe, not even I know! An exclusive partnership with one of his suppliers I think!, Well , the nitpicking is what gets the good to perfect Isn't it? Thanks again for your feedback!

 

[paul1598419]

Congratulations on your new acquisition. Sounds like you got a good deal to me as well.

 

[WizardG]

Congratulations on your new acquisition. Sounds like you got a good deal to me as well.

I'm a pretty satisfied customer If I could have one thing added to the kit it would be to trade one (or all) of the star caps for a cap with a plain AR coated window to keep dust outta those nice clean optics. The collimating lens is sort of 'down in the hole' and isn't going to be easy to clean when the need arises.....and it will!

Hmmm, I need to add this one to my sig'!

 

[paul1598419]

I'm a pretty satisfied customer If I could have one thing added to the kit it would be to trade one (or all) of the star caps for a cap with a plain AR coated window to keep dust outta those nice clean optics. The collimating lens is sort of 'down in the hole' and isn't going to be easy to clean when the need arises.....and it will!

Hmmm, I need to add this one to my sig'!

Yeah, I'm not a huge star cap fan either. I got 5 of them with my 593.5nm laser. I finally got around to measuring its wavelength and it isn't a 591nm. I need to change that is my signature as well.

 

[wolfram]

your safety eye wear was on the ground, so now im blind! I missed it all.....Thanks

 

[ChromeCaviar]

Great review! I also bought a 488 Valkyrie, and I agree with everything you said. The color looks sky-blue to me as well, I was expecting more teal, but I love the pure light blue. I find the color looks like a deeper blue at night, but closer to teal during the day. I had the same thoughts about an AR coated window, I considered buying the 3x beam expander, just to have a protective optic that's easy to clean. I recently bought a "rod lens" and affixed it to a star cap housing, to make a threaded line-generator attachment. I love seeing the patterns in smoke, or shining the line through tall grass. I think Tinker would sell a lot of protective window and line-generator attachments if they offered them. A ground-glass diffuser would be cool too, I use a piece of matte scotch tape, but that might get melted by higher powered lasers.

 

[WizardG]

Great review! I also bought a 488 Valkyrie, and I agree with everything you said. The color looks sky-blue to me as well, I was expecting more teal, but I love the pure light blue. I find the color looks like a deeper blue at night, but closer to teal during the day. I had the same thoughts about an AR coated window, I considered buying the 3x beam expander, just to have a protective optic that's easy to clean. I recently bought a "rod lens" and affixed it to a star cap housing, to make a threaded line-generator attachment. I love seeing the patterns in smoke, or shining the line through tall grass. I think Tinker would sell a lot of protective window and line-generator attachments if they offered them. A ground-glass diffuser would be cool too, I use a piece of matte scotch tape, but that might get melted by higher powered lasers.

Diffusers are great with single mode diodes. Love the trippy look of speckle But this laser has very little/no speckle which is one of the reasons I'm sure it's not single mode. It's either a mystery diode, or that poor little 60mW diode loses it's single mode goodness when overdriven to a quarter watt.

 

[ChromeCaviar]

Diffusers are great with single mode diodes. Love the trippy look of speckle But this laser has very little/no speckle which is one of the reasons I'm sure it's not single mode. It's either a mystery diode, or that poor little 60mW diode loses it's single mode goodness when overdriven to a quarter watt.

That's interesting that your laser doesn't have much speckle. I feel like mine has a similar amount of speckle to my other lasers. I wanted to take a picture of the speckle and quickly realized it is not easy to capture on camera. After some experimenting, I found that focusing the beam onto the matte side of aluminum foil exaggerated the speckle enough for the camera to pick it up.

 

[WizardG]

Hmm, I wonder if they all use the same diode. One of my go-to visual effects is shining a laser into a big selenite crystal. With a single mode laser I get wicked speckle. With my Valkyrie.......might as well be a bright LED. Compare a good 532 DPSS green through a diffuser to a 445 multimode diode. Night and day difference.

 

[paul1598419]

I use a convex mirror to spread the beam which, at least for lower powers, allows me to look into the beam. Now that's speckle.