I ordered 5 of the
LEDShoppe 50 mW green laser pointers (LP1076) on the evening (PST) of April 20, and they showed up this morning at 10 AM, less than 8 days later.
I used the 15% off coupon (1560) for orders over $60, and pushed it over $100 to get the free fast shipping.
It all came out to $21.20 per laser, delivered.
The post office sent out a special delivery truck. The driver said he had to deliver them before noon, and I had to sign for them. Tracking at usps.com (thanks Wansyth!) let me know what day they would arrive...
[tt]Arrival at Unit, April 28, 2009, 8:08 am, xxxxxxxx, OR
Processed, April 28, 2009, 4:55 am, yyyyyyy, OR
Inbound Out of Customs, April 27, 2009, 1:09 pm
Inbound Into Customs
Inbound International Arrival, April 25, 2009, 10:06 am, ISC SAN FRANCISCO (USPS)
Foreign International Dispatch, April 24, 2009, 8:51 pm, HONG KONG AIR MAIL CENTRE, HONG KONG
Foreign Acceptance, April 24, 2009, 5:29 pm, HONG KONG
Origin Post is Preparing Shipment[/tt]
They were well packed, the only possible quibble being that they were able to scrape together, since there was nothing separating the individual pens. Nevertheless, they all arrived in fine shape.
I tested the power output using the
Simple Laser Power Meter (3.13 multiplier). Each laser was run for 30 seconds, 4 inches from the target.
I used the same set of batteries for each test, giving them at least 5 minutes to recover between tests. After testing all of them, I checked the first one again to see if the batteries had sagged after 2.5 minutes of use (they had, but only a little).
Measured Power
[tt]
1 63.2 mW
2 66.4 mW
3 62.0 mW
4 71.4 mW
5 52.9 mW
1 62.0 mW (retest)[/tt]
Testing for IR (infrared)
I bought a 760 nm IR pass camera filter for $10.99 from y2krex on ebay. If you shoot the green beam through this filter at a white target in a dark room, you see nothing at all. But it should let through most of the IR.
Eventually I'll measure the IR attenuation and post back here, but in the mean time, I measured the first laser again, but this time with the filter blocking the green wavelength. I measured 12.5 mW of IR, so we know there is at least that much coming out, and probably another 10% or 20% more. Like I said I'll let you know.
Before this, the brightest green laser I owned measured 6.7 mW, and these do appear ever so much brighter. I am very pleased!
Edit (4/29/2009):
I checked my IR filter, and it transmits 90.1% of the IR. I also determined that all of the IR is 1064 nm.
So the first laser was generating
[tt]
49.3 mW of green
13.9 mW of 1064 nm IR
-------
63.2 mW total[/tt]
hack
