TinkerTavern Lasers took my money and sent me lasers

[Walleyeking]

I recently had a bit of a splurge on TinkerLasers.com

I decided to chase down some different wavelengths that I haven't previously had access to and made a late-night order (or two) for several lasers from TinkerLasers.com.

This splurge consists of:
405 nm pen
488 nm pen
561 nm pen

425 nm "core" (turns out they sent a gold (brass?) valkyrie in 425!)
450 nm valkyrie
505 nm valkyrie
532 nm valkyrie
593 nm valkyrie

bonus: 532 nm pen

Lots to play with here.

Narrative:
The pens arrived as part of an earlier (partial) shipment. I had ordered the pens, a "core 425" and the 505 and 593 valkyries as part of an initial order. The order didn't ship for a few weeks and I reached out to Tinker through their website via email and via the chat to inquire, and it turns out the core 425 wasn't in stock at the time, but they put out a partial shipment with the 3 pen lasers. I wasn't sure what to expect from Tinker having never worked with them before, and therefore wasn't sure about spending even more $$$ on all valkyrie series or on all wavelengths. But when I reached out about shipment i was responded to via chat immediately who were prompt in issueing a partial shipment and transparent on when the rest would ship.

When the pens arrived, i was pretty pleased that the 488nm and 561nm were actually real, since both of those wavelengths would have been either unobtanium in price (i.e., the DPSS 561nm) or relgated to a large Argon-ion system. I guess the last time I was paying close attention to the laser hobby was when 440 nm laser diodes were just starting to be extracted from the first generation of laser projectors, and 405nm blu ray was fresh and novel.

Given the positive interaction i had after reaching out and getting support on shipping times, as well as my follow-up discussion through the website chat to verify some of the battery orientations and voltage requirements, i was feeling pretty confident to pull the trigger on a few more, hence the order for the 532 and 450 valkyries.

Whelp, the 425, 505, and 593 lasers from the first order and the 532 and 450 lasers from the second order arrived today. To my surprise, the 425 laser that arrived is in a brass valkyrie host, not the "core" that body that was originally ordered. Based on the website listing, this matches the style of the 425 valkyrie pro, so if this was their solution to ship me a 425 laser in a timely fashion, it looks like i was given quite the upgrade. in addition, there was another laser pen stuffed into the case, a 532 pointer. It does feel like Tinker went out of their way to make the initial shipping delay "right".



In total, i received 5 valkyrie-bodied lasers in 4 metal cases, which makes sense since i ordered 4 valkyries and i presume the cases were intended for the valkyries. Most of the cases were delivered with a Li-ion charger and a set of "red" unlabled laser goggles. I don't believe i would trust these red goggles around any of the 1 W + but i didn't expect there to be any goggles batteries or chargers included (not even sure i was aware if there would be the metal cases either) so I cannot complain. Ironically, the red goggles also appeared in the box with the 593nm "yellow" laser, and i don't believe it would provide any protection from 593. Perhaps since the 593 is only "25 mW", the red goggles would enhance how well the laser stands out when used outside in bright conditions.

In general, here is what i've observed:
The DPSS (532 and 593) valkyries take pairs of 16340 or 18350s case positive. I'm excited for the additional capcity that 18350s provide over 16340.
The direct diode (425, 450, 505) take single 18650 case positive.

all the pens are fixed-focus, nominally collimated. Except the bonus 532 pen appears to have a focus somewhere in front of the laser, and appears to diverge into a gaussian spot at normal pointing distances.

All valkyrie lasers --- except the 593 yellow --- are focusable. The front cap on the valkyrie body appears to be dual-threaded with a M9-0.5 thread for the typical laser collimating lenses embedded deep within the cap, and an outer portion threaded for M11x0.5 that accepts the included diffraction caps and i presume the typical thread-on attachments like beam expanders, etc.

the 593 yellow laser contains no collimating lense. inspecting into the aperture you can see the module is terminated with some type of crystal element bonded to the output aperture, presumable some nonlinear for whatever sum frequency voodoo is being used to produce 593. The same can be said inside the 561 pen laser. I will probably keep a star cap on the end of these yellows since there is no other protective window, lense, output coupler, etc.

Here are some quick and dirty cellphone camera beam shots.
450 (left) 425 (right). the 425 is definitely a deeper blue than the 450, even more so in person



532 DPSS left and 505 direct diode right. the 532 is such a classically small diameter beam compared to the diode 505. The 505 is definitely much "colder" green when compared next to a 532.



561 pen laser (left) and 593 valkyrie (right).
These are much lower powered lasers and much harder for me to solo capture off the back porch. but colorwise i think this is a reasonable relative comparison. the 561 is very much a green-yellow and the 593 is very much and orange-yellow. Or perhaps i should say yellow-green vs yellow-orange? if were talking about chocolate milk and milk chocolate, where milk describes the type of chocolate, then it's the latter. Yellow is describing the type of green and orange, respectively. This is making it really hard not to order a valkyrie in one of the intermediate wavelengths, although i've probably exhausted my laser budget for the time being!


the 505 valkyrie (left) and the 488 pen laser (right). I find it amazing how much the hue changes between the blue of the 488 to the green of the 505 in 17 little nanometers. To be fair, my camera makes the 505 look more green than it actually is.


finally, the previous comparison made me want to check the extreme sides of green, so here is the 505 valkyrie against the 561 pen laser. these are a little more visually distinct that the camera makes them appear; however, its amazing to me how these two wavelengths are 56 nm apart is compared to the 488 cyan and 505 green being only 17 nm apart.


Other thoughts:

I've been pleasantly surprised ordering from Tinker. So far all the lasers seem like they are what they were advertised to be. I don't have a power meter, but given the instant smoke that some of the blues and green produced on the box foam, i'm pretty confident that the powers are the appropriate order of magnitude for what has been claimed. the expected DPSS lasers are DPSS, and all lasers seem to be reasonably laser-y in that the diffraction grating tips can be adjust to produce interference fringes in the spots, which makes me very pleased. next step is to create some DIY laser/light demonstrations and see if the local science center has any interest.

I've been working on a DIY double slit, pinhole filter, cylindrical lens, and procuring a couple of beam splitters to try and configure an interferometer or two.

Anybody here every DIY an LDV?

 

[Encap]

Nice selections.