Sanwu Challenger II 488nm beam shots 150mw

[CurtisOliver]

That's much better than my attempts, mine came out looking like ~470nm.
I had to hue shift mine.

 

[paul1598419]

It does look like an actual 488nm laser. But, I think this one is higher in wavelength and has more green content to it.

 

[CurtisOliver]

The 488's Sanwu sells are binned if I am correct in saying?
I am saving up for a 488 pocket as I now want a diode in the region of 488-490nm.
If they are not, then I might as well take a gamble on another eBay waterproof 488 again to save money.

 

[RedCowboy]

Struggling?????
The color looks beautiful to me

Yes it's a great wavelength, funny as I had become tired of teal paint on cars but this aquamarine beam is really beautiful, I hope we see a 1/4 watt+++ unit in the future.

 

[GSS]

Anyone know what the deal is with Laserpointerstore's water proof host 488 for $59??

 

[CurtisOliver]

If it is the same one as I got from eBay, then they are genuine and good value for money. You can expect anything from 489-494nm though.

 

[GSS]

Oh yeah, now I remember as you do have one like it..

 

[CurtisOliver]

It’s probably exactly the same model but being resold at different prices. But we’ll worth it. I really like mine. You won’t regret it.

 

[Miya]

i like cyan light. It's like the light of a fairy

 

[trussmonkey25]

I call that color teal blue...like the bottle flies

 

[ChrisWhit]

Yeah it's amazing how much fun you can have with just 150mw of 488nm and a 3x beam expander. It's just bright enough to give you all the blue beam wow at night, but not so powerful as to make you paranoid that you're drawing attention from folks merging onto a nearby highway

 

[RedCowboy]

If you can find a stand of trees a few hundred meters away you can paint a dot with that 3XBE, I love the look of a far reaching beam with a visible termination late at night.

This is not actually crossing over my neighbors deck, it just looks like it is and the trees I am hitting are at least 450 meters away, the trees I am hitting are past what this pic really shows but I can see them with my naked eye, someday I will get a better camera then learn how to use it, but for now suffice to say this is much better seen live.



These trees are only 200 meters away.....maybe closer to 175 meters, it's just a matter of perspective, if you can show the depth by including the surrounding landscape it shows better because the lens can compress distance especially if zoomed in.....duhh I know but even zoomed out you can easily lose perspective.

 

[SnowCobra]

I am so confused, I have been researching Diodes since December and cant quite nail down all the factors to color. I have a cheap ebay "488" and it has almost no blue tint to it, I'd say maybe 15% blue and the rest green. Looks much different than yours. I remember reading the higher the power the more it shifts up? Is this true? I do know for certain that cameras, especially phone cameras, do not pick up or display the true color at all. Whats more important, is that they actually adjust color (be it the screen or whatever) per the lighting or colors around it. This can be evident outdoors at night with different color lights and the camera live.

Anyway, I really really want a sky blue laser and I'm about to just blow more money on the next NM down and keep going down to 460nm until I find what I'm looking for.

I am very skeptical of all of these proposed nm without some way to measure it, I would really like an instrument to put all mine through so I can really get a baseline and know for sure. I did also notice, with a digital camera, the only way to get the blue to even start looking right is next to green or another color.

As soon as I lower the file size, Ill attach some of my pics for you to see.

 

[paul1598419]

You likely didn't get a true 488nm laser, but a higher 493nm or 495nm one. I have some actual 486nm, 487nm and 488nm lasers and they are the lightest blue color I have seen. You will never know what wavelength your lasers are unless you have the equipment necessary to measure them.

Now, it is true that some diodes do shift in wavelength with the drive current, but not all do. The NDB7675 comes to mind as an example of one that does. The M462 is an example of one that doesn't.....and they are both 462nm laser diodes. There are other examples, but these two demonstrate that they are not all the same.

As far as cameras not capturing the color of lasers, I have a 574nm lemon yellow laser that looks absolutely green when photographed with a digital camera. That is the best example I can think of.

 

[ChrisWhit]

If you can find a stand of trees a few hundred meters away you can paint a dot with that 3XBE, I love the look of a far reaching beam with a visible termination late at night.

This is not actually crossing over my neighbors deck, it just looks like it is and the trees I am hitting are at least 450 meters away, the trees I am hitting are past what this pic really shows but I can see them with my naked eye, someday I will get a better camera then learn how to use it, but for now suffice to say this is much better seen live.

View attachment 63818

These trees are only 200 meters away.....maybe closer to 175 meters, it's just a matter of perspective, if you can show the depth by including the surrounding landscape it shows better because the lens can compress distance especially if zoomed in.....duhh I know but even zoomed out you can easily lose perspective.
View attachment 63819

An interesting phenomena that I've noticed is how the beam does seem to terminate suddenly at some given distance as it appears to the naked eye. Maybe it's how our limited ability to discern spatial detail on something as small and precise as a long skinny beam and point of light, distorts our perception of distance. I'll point mine at say a line of trees merely 150 yards away and it seems the spot is just there over the trees but it doesn't look like it goes on through them where it can.. It just sits right at the trees at an absolutely fixed distance. Obviously it's not really working like that, but it's an optical illusion I suppose that it looks that way. I've often wondered if there's some quantum thing going on with these lasers. Like they work with our own consciousness and awareness somehow. There was an experiment that seemed to imply that, interestingly enough

 

[ChrisWhit]

I am so confused, I have been researching Diodes since December and cant quite nail down all the factors to color. I have a cheap ebay "488" and it has almost no blue tint to it, I'd say maybe 15% blue and the rest green. Looks much different than yours. I remember reading the higher the power the more it shifts up? Is this true? I do know for certain that cameras, especially phone cameras, do not pick up or display the true color at all. Whats more important, is that they actually adjust color (be it the screen or whatever) per the lighting or colors around it. This can be evident outdoors at night with different color lights and the camera live.

Anyway, I really really want a sky blue laser and I'm about to just blow more money on the next NM down and keep going down to 460nm until I find what I'm looking for.

I am very skeptical of all of these proposed nm without some way to measure it, I would really like an instrument to put all mine through so I can really get a baseline and know for sure. I did also notice, with a digital camera, the only way to get the blue to even start looking right is next to green or another color.

As soon as I lower the file size, Ill attach some of my pics for you to see.

I agree with Paul in that if you don't see as much blue as greenish, then you most likely have a +493nm. Mine is not as sky blue as it appears in the later pics. But the first two pics where I'm shooting indoors across stairwell is almost dead on to how it looks to the naked eye.. More aqua blue.. edging towards cyan. I believe mine is 490nm. But this is an interesting wavelength in that it sometimes looks bluer. Other times greener. I really do love my 470nm for a bright true blue.. All blue and no green