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Review of the Tinker Lasers Valkyrie 488

WizardG said:
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.
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The 488 diodes we use are all single mode so multimode characteristics can be ruled out. This is just speculation, but it may be due to the spectral line width. The 488 diodes we use are notably variable (they have been known to come up from 479nm all the way up to 496nm, along with even more spectacular occurrences like rare multiline diodes.)

My best guess is that the laser without the speckle emits a somewhat wider band of wavelengths.
 





tinkertavernco said:
The 488 diodes we use are all single mode so multimode characteristics can be ruled out. This is just speculation, but it may be due to the spectral line width. The 488 diodes we use are notably variable (they have been known to come up from 479nm all the way up to 496nm, along with even more spectacular occurrences like rare multiline diodes.)

My best guess is that the laser without the speckle emits a somewhat wider band of wavelengths.
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I'll ask my buddy in the lab @ work to spectro the thing for me. Gonna cost me a six pack though :cool:
 
tinkertavernco said:
The 488 diodes we use are all single mode so multimode characteristics can be ruled out. This is just speculation, but it may be due to the spectral line width. The 488 diodes we use are notably variable (they have been known to come up from 479nm all the way up to 496nm, along with even more spectacular occurrences like rare multiline diodes.)

My best guess is that the laser without the speckle emits a somewhat wider band of wavelengths.
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You are correct about multimode diodes. They don't give the amount of speckle one would expect from a laser.
 
My buddy in the lab confirms this is kind of a weird diode. Below 65 degrees F it puts out something very close to a single mode beam, speckle and all. But as it warms up it's linewidth gets bigger and bigger. I'm still looking up exactly what this means but my lab guy says at 95 degrees F this laser has a linewidth of just under 40 Ghz. I guess it loses its speckle when warm not due to being multimode but because it gets less and less monochromatic as it heats up.

Still a gorgeous color. No regrets! Thanks Tinker.
 
I just put together a now broken, 488nm pen which was under driven putting out like 1mw. I was pressing the button a lot steadily and even tho irrelevant being under driven made it score a 486nm or less wavelength which was reallllly pretty. As I turned the pot like 1-5/10ths of a mm at a time while pressing the button, I got it to like 10-15mw.... ish? and the speckle was so Incredible! It looked just like a dpss. It had so much sparkle.

So my conclusion is get the heat sinking over done for small builds to hopefully keep the speckle. Go crazy with it

If anyone cares to know, its possible to make them very under driven and low power
 
WizardG said:
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 :cool:
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Price?
 
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