Re: RPL in action
Morepower said:
I didn't see it drop under around 425mW and saw it hit 470+. Hey I was barracking for it to hit 500, for a minute there I thought it was going to. That would be a very nice Laser Jack.
As Murphy's laser law would have it, at the end of the video when I pointer the camera down onto the RPL, I pushed the stop button on the digital camera thus ending that video. I then looked at the meter and it was at 506mW and remained between 497 and 514 for another 20 seconds before dropping back to the 460's. This was all done with a battery that already had a good 10 minutes use on it.
I have to tell you though, these power levels are not typical by any means. I have this laser and one other that is just bit better that I even made an RPL-400 label for and it's peaked at 551 and held steady at 520mW last night on a new battery.
To give you an idea of how rare this kind of power is, I tested hundreds and hundreds of them and these two are the best of the the bunch.
The typical RPL-325 will usually average ~340mW, but sometimes go as high as 370mW.
I guess the main purpose I had in mind when making the video was to show that Optotronics isn't blowin' laser fog up it's customer's (well you what). I wanted the meter to begin at zero and show the laser in action along with the meter and thermal head all in the same frames.
Many of the companies are blowin the fog' and claiming huge output levels and either not testing them at all or only using a lasercheck at best and an lasercheck only measures peak power over a 2 second period, even if that peak only lasted a few microseconds.
If we could encourage other companies that are claiming high power output and saying that they really test their products (not that some don't, there are a few and I could name them on the digits of less than one of my hands.), to make some video's like this with their lasers in use with a real thermal based sensor.
It could help give the buyer some confidence that they're really getting what they pay for.
Oh, Morepower, one thing I wanted to say about this video is that the laser had to be warmed up a bit before getting up to this power. That's probably why it still increased when I stopped the camera. Several months ago, I believe there was a slight change in crystal or diode properties so that rather than being at their best/top power output in the few seconds after being turned on, they now behave more like bench lasers in that they take a bit of time to warm-up ( at least when they begin at a room temperature of 72F). This laser when 1st powered up from it cold state will output ~330-350mW, but will continue to climb as it warms up. To run this video, I ran it for about 35-45 seconds, then turned the laser off, reset the meter and then started the camera and turned the laser back on.
Jack
