KMitch
0
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2015
- Messages
- 56
- Points
- 18
I once again have to thank the staff at the Texas Petawatt Laser Facility for working after hours to help me meter all three of my portable lasers, the Sanwu Spiker being the last one that I'll be reviewing until I purchase something new :san:
I had a lot of concerns before buying this because I was just getting into the hobby. Francis at Sanwu was excellent with communication, and he always answered within the day regardless of how many times I bugged him about which way to insert the batteries, how to toggle between different modes...etc. I ordered the 3W Spiker that takes (2) 26650 batteries, had the G7 lens installed, and ordered the 3X beam expander because everyone seemed to recommend it.
The laser and components were bubble wrapped, but the packaging wasn't the greatest as you can see in the photo below. While the Spiker is a tank and could probably survive a nuclear blast, it would have been nice to receive it in at least a cardboard box.
Aside from a few metal shavings left inside the battery tube, the Spiker was put together with amazing attention to detail. The threads were butter smooth and the battery end cap screwed to the battery tube seamlessly. The stainless steel was polished, and I couldn't see any dents on the host. I should also point out that the entire thing with beam expander attached is HEAVY, which I personally think adds to my impression of this being a high quality product.
I bought two name brand batteries: the Basen IMR 26650 4500MAH 60A from Li-ion Wholesale, and the Efest 26650 4200mAh from IMRbatteries. I used a Nitecore IntelliCharger New I2 battery charger and relied on CE certified Noir LaserShield goggles rated at OD8 for 445nm.
Here are a couple shots of the beam without the beam expander.
For some reason, my camera had issues picking up the blue in the most intense regions of the beam while I had the beam expander on. While it looks purple, the color is actually blue throughout.
It's also a good burner, cutting through 1 cm of wood in about 3 minutes. Wood will spontaneously ignite only if the beam is focused. When the beam expander is unscrewed as far as possible, the smallest diameter of the beam will be about 2-3 feet in front of the lens as you can see in the next picture.
I measured divergence against some silicon carbide sandpaper but it burned holes through it pretty quickly. I even managed to burn a hole through white paper but not before I could take a measurement. The widest part of the beam (the slow axis?) measured 8 mm at 10 feet (3.048 m) and 30 mm at 50 feet (15.24 m) giving a divergence of 1.80 mRad without the beam expander. For reference, my Optotronics 54 mW green has a divergence of 0.656, and my LaserBTB 300mW green measures 1.39. A higher divergence is expected for these powerful blue diodes though the NDB7875 has less than the NUBM44 and the G7 lens helps reduce the spot size. I didn't measure the divergence with the beam expander, but it should be reduced by a factor of about 3.5.
One of the reasons I wanted to test the power of this laser was because visually, I could not see any difference whatsoever between half power and full power mode. The laser MAY have burned at a slightly higher rate on full power but even that was hard to tell. Was this stuck on half power or something? Well, the LPM test results clear this up. Using a Scientech 365 digital power meter, with the laser about 3 feet away, we measured 2.13W at half power, quite a bit higher than the 1.5W I expected. On full power mode, it started at 3W then dropped down over the next 30 seconds. The second photo was taken while it was still dropping, but it settled on about 2.70W, which is 10% lower than advertised. With less than 0.6W between half power and full power mode, it makes sense that I couldn't tell the difference.
If half power is at 2.13W, do you think that the laser is trying to get to 4.2W, but having difficulty? I'm not too knowledgeable about how these multimode controls operate.
After using this laser for a few months, it's still going strong but I did notice one issue about the button in back. For the first month, I didn't have any issues going to a certain mode, turning the laser off, then seeing it on the same mode when I turn it on again. Recently, I've seen it going to the next mode when I turn it on regardless of how careful I am in pressing the button. This can be dangerous if you're expecting the laser to be at 10mW and it's actually putting out > 2W. Granted, safety and all that, but it's still a valid concern I think. Overall I love the purchase though, and the laser is incredibly well machined. I wish it were putting out a true 3W but it's at least pretty close and with the beam focused it makes a great burner.
Finally, here's a quick video of the laser in action at a golf course late at night. I usually play with my lasers around 2-3 am when no one is out there, and planes have stopped flying in. I found a man laying face down on the grass, unresponsive but breathing, and I called 911 to get him help. An ambulance actually drove down the fairway and a team of about 10 people finally got him up. First time my laser hobby has helped anyone, though I hope he didn't get stuck with a huge bill.
https://youtu.be/TSc64VUYavs
I had a lot of concerns before buying this because I was just getting into the hobby. Francis at Sanwu was excellent with communication, and he always answered within the day regardless of how many times I bugged him about which way to insert the batteries, how to toggle between different modes...etc. I ordered the 3W Spiker that takes (2) 26650 batteries, had the G7 lens installed, and ordered the 3X beam expander because everyone seemed to recommend it.
The laser and components were bubble wrapped, but the packaging wasn't the greatest as you can see in the photo below. While the Spiker is a tank and could probably survive a nuclear blast, it would have been nice to receive it in at least a cardboard box.
Aside from a few metal shavings left inside the battery tube, the Spiker was put together with amazing attention to detail. The threads were butter smooth and the battery end cap screwed to the battery tube seamlessly. The stainless steel was polished, and I couldn't see any dents on the host. I should also point out that the entire thing with beam expander attached is HEAVY, which I personally think adds to my impression of this being a high quality product.
I bought two name brand batteries: the Basen IMR 26650 4500MAH 60A from Li-ion Wholesale, and the Efest 26650 4200mAh from IMRbatteries. I used a Nitecore IntelliCharger New I2 battery charger and relied on CE certified Noir LaserShield goggles rated at OD8 for 445nm.
Here are a couple shots of the beam without the beam expander.
For some reason, my camera had issues picking up the blue in the most intense regions of the beam while I had the beam expander on. While it looks purple, the color is actually blue throughout.
It's also a good burner, cutting through 1 cm of wood in about 3 minutes. Wood will spontaneously ignite only if the beam is focused. When the beam expander is unscrewed as far as possible, the smallest diameter of the beam will be about 2-3 feet in front of the lens as you can see in the next picture.
I measured divergence against some silicon carbide sandpaper but it burned holes through it pretty quickly. I even managed to burn a hole through white paper but not before I could take a measurement. The widest part of the beam (the slow axis?) measured 8 mm at 10 feet (3.048 m) and 30 mm at 50 feet (15.24 m) giving a divergence of 1.80 mRad without the beam expander. For reference, my Optotronics 54 mW green has a divergence of 0.656, and my LaserBTB 300mW green measures 1.39. A higher divergence is expected for these powerful blue diodes though the NDB7875 has less than the NUBM44 and the G7 lens helps reduce the spot size. I didn't measure the divergence with the beam expander, but it should be reduced by a factor of about 3.5.
One of the reasons I wanted to test the power of this laser was because visually, I could not see any difference whatsoever between half power and full power mode. The laser MAY have burned at a slightly higher rate on full power but even that was hard to tell. Was this stuck on half power or something? Well, the LPM test results clear this up. Using a Scientech 365 digital power meter, with the laser about 3 feet away, we measured 2.13W at half power, quite a bit higher than the 1.5W I expected. On full power mode, it started at 3W then dropped down over the next 30 seconds. The second photo was taken while it was still dropping, but it settled on about 2.70W, which is 10% lower than advertised. With less than 0.6W between half power and full power mode, it makes sense that I couldn't tell the difference.
If half power is at 2.13W, do you think that the laser is trying to get to 4.2W, but having difficulty? I'm not too knowledgeable about how these multimode controls operate.
After using this laser for a few months, it's still going strong but I did notice one issue about the button in back. For the first month, I didn't have any issues going to a certain mode, turning the laser off, then seeing it on the same mode when I turn it on again. Recently, I've seen it going to the next mode when I turn it on regardless of how careful I am in pressing the button. This can be dangerous if you're expecting the laser to be at 10mW and it's actually putting out > 2W. Granted, safety and all that, but it's still a valid concern I think. Overall I love the purchase though, and the laser is incredibly well machined. I wish it were putting out a true 3W but it's at least pretty close and with the beam focused it makes a great burner.
Finally, here's a quick video of the laser in action at a golf course late at night. I usually play with my lasers around 2-3 am when no one is out there, and planes have stopped flying in. I found a man laying face down on the grass, unresponsive but breathing, and I called 911 to get him help. An ambulance actually drove down the fairway and a team of about 10 people finally got him up. First time my laser hobby has helped anyone, though I hope he didn't get stuck with a huge bill.
https://youtu.be/TSc64VUYavs
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