Under 1w Lasers?

[XxCodyDarnellxX]

Hey everyone! I'm new to the hobby of "lasers", and am curious as to why so many of the active members of this site, who list all of their "Owned Lasers", don't have any over 1w? The most common ones I see are only around 100w. Is there any specific reason for this? Money to tight to spend on expensive lights for most adults, or perhaps something about 1w+ lasers is turning them off of it?

 

[Leodahsan]

Do you mean mW (miliwatt)? I don't get it...

 

[dubious speculation]

you're probably not looking hard enough although im a bad example, ive got none

 

[adam1]

I don't really get what you mean either. I've seen many, many members with lasers well over 1W. The reason that lots of lasers are less than 1W is probably because 1W lasers that are not 445nm are comparatively rare/expensive. You can get a M140 diode that will give you 1W easily for $45, but most other wavelengths (except IR) will cost $$$. Most of us don't only care about the raw power of the laser, we care about wavelengths and other stuff too.

 

[KapHn8d]

I'll throw my two cents in here. If you want to "play" with lasers and admire the beautiful beams with your naked eye, shoot them through beam splitters and various translucent materials to see how you can bend and bounce the light, then a high powered laser will seriously limit your ability to do so... they are not toys. They are quite dangerous and should be treated like a loaded firearm. You only get one set of eyes and afaik, we don't have the technology yet to replace them

Lower powered lasers with a fog machine are a heck of a lot of fun and, for the most part, less expensive ("exotic" wavelengths aside).

Perhaps start with a few low powered units and get your feet wet... then, if you feel you need to have that beast down the road (even if it's just a few weeks), you'll have been able to practice good safety habits on stuff that won't permanently blind you or someone /something else.

Cheers!

 

[hwang21]

There's also the confusion people get when they say "but my common household lamp uses a 100W lightbulb... your 1W laser must be really weak" :banghead:

 

[Sigurthr]

There's also the confusion people get when they say "but my common household lamp uses a 100W lightbulb... your 1W laser must be really weak" :banghead:

A typical household lamp USES 100W of energy but only puts out about 2.6W of visible light. The other 97.4W are lost to heat and infrared light. A high efficiency incandescent only achieves a 5% efficiency at best. A 2.6W RGB system with proper white balance will be equal in light output to a standard household light (just way more concentrated).